The guards were stationed, but inside the ring of wagons many fires burned brightly, and around them was a crowd that talked much, but talked low.  The women could not sleep, nor could the children, whose curiosity was intensely aroused by the coming of these extraordinary-looking strangers.  The larger of the children understood the danger, but the smaller did not, and their spirits were not dampened at all.

The night came down, a great blanket of darkness, in the center of which the camp fires were now fused together into a cone of light.  A few stars came out in the dusky heavens, and twinkled feebly.  The spring wind sighed gently among the new leaves of the forest.  The voices of women and children gradually died.  Some slept in blankets before the fires, and others in the wagons, whose stout oak sides would turn any bullet.

Daniel Poe walked just outside the circle of the wagons, and his heart was heavy with care.  Yet he was upborne by the magnetic personality of Henry Ware, who walked beside him.

“How far from us do you think they are now?” he asked.

“Fifty miles, perhaps, and they are at least a thousand strong.  It was their object to fall suddenly upon you in the dark, but when their scouts find that you fortify every night, they will wait to ambush you on the day’s march.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Daniel Poe, “and we’ve got to guard against it as best we can.”

“But my comrades and I and Dick Salter will be your eyes,” said Henry.  “We’ll be around you in the woods, watching all the time.”

“Thank God that you have come,” said Daniel Poe devoutly.  “I think that Providence must have sent you and your friends to save us.  Think what might have happened if you had not come.”

He shuddered.  Before him came a swift vision of red slaughter—­women and children massacred in the darkness.  Then his brave heart swelled to meet the coming danger.  The night passed without alarm, but Henry, Ross, and Shif’less Sol, roaming far in the forest, saw signs that told them infallibly where warriors had passed.

“The attack will come,” said Henry.

“As sure as night follows day,” said Ross, “an’ it’s our business to know when it’s about to come.”

Henry nodded, and the three sped on in their great circle about the camp, not coming in until a little before day, when they slept briefly before one of the fires.  When the people arose and found that nothing had happened, they were light-hearted.  Nothing had happened, so nothing would happen, they said to themselves; they were too strong for the danger that had threatened, and it would pass them by.  Day was so much more cheerful than night.

They ate breakfast, their appetites brisk in the crisp morning air, and resumed the march.  But they advanced slowly, the wagons in a close, triple file, with riflemen on either side.  But Daniel Poe knew that their chief reliance now was the eyes of the five strangers, who were in the forest on either side and in front.  They had made a deep impression upon him, as they had upon every other person with whom they came into contact.  He had the most implicit confidence in their courage, skill, and faith.