“That is just it.  They have doubts about their welcome.”

“That being so,” said Paul, in the light, jesting spirit that he loved, “I’ll just wait until they knock at our door.  Meanwhile I’ll take a drink from that lucky cistern of ours.”

He bent his head into the barrel, and as he drank he felt fresh strength and courage rushing into his veins.

“It was great luck, wasn’t it, to find this barrel?” he said.

“It certainly was,” replied Henry, and his words came from the bottom of his heart.  “Now you watch while I take a drink.”

Paul did so, but he noticed nothing unusual in the woods.  The faint signs that Henry read with such an unerring eye were hidden from him.  But his skill was sufficient to cover all the cleared space.  No warrior could pass there unseen by him.  Henry rejoined him.

“You watch from one side and I’ll take the other,” he said.

They did so, but the single room of the cabin was so small that they were only a few feet from each other, and could talk together in low tones.

“It will be a trial of patience,” said Henry.  “The Indian always has more time than anybody else in the world, and he is willing to make the most of it.”

Paul, too, knew that Shawnees, no matter what their numbers, would not yet risk a headlong attack on the cabin, and now his curiosity as to what they would do was aroused.  It was surprise that Henry and he must guard against.  What was to be expected?  His sense of curiosity was as keenly aroused as his sense of danger.

Over an hour dragged slowly by, minute by minute.  The sun blazed brilliantly over the wilderness, and the shut little cabin grew close and hot.  No fresh air came except by the loopholes, and it was not enough for coolness.  Paul’s forehead grew damp, and his eyes ached from continual watching at the loophole.  Curiosity now began to give way to anger.  If they were going to do anything, why didn’t they do it?  He watched the forest so much and so intently that he began to create images there for himself.  A tall stump was distorted into the figure of an Indian warrior, a clump of bushes took the shape of an entire group of Shawnees, and many savage, black eyes looked from the leaves.  Paul’s reason told him that he beheld nothing, but his fancy put them there, nevertheless.  He saw presently a little jet of smoke, rising like a white feather; he heard a report, and then the sound of a bullet burying itself with a soft sigh in a log of the cabin.  He laughed at the futility of it, but Henry said: 

“They’re just trying us a little—­skirmishing, so to speak.  Be careful there, Paul!  A chance bullet might catch you in the eye at the loophole.”