Henry looked at the sleeping lad, and his look was a compound of great friendship and admiration.  He knew that Paul was not, like himself, born to the wilderness, and he respected the courage and skill that could triumph nevertheless.  But it was only a fleeting look.  His eyes turned back to the forest, where he watched lazily; lazily, because he knew with the certainty of divination that they would not attempt anything until dark, and he knew with equal certainty that they would attempt something then.

He awakened Paul in two hours, and took his place on the bench.  He had not slept at all the night before, when they were expecting a foe who had not yet come, and he, too, must be fresh when the conflict was at hand.

“When you see shadows in the clearing, wake me, without fail, Paul,” he said.

Then he closed his eyes, and like Paul slept almost at once.  Neither the weary waiting nor the danger could upset his nerves so much that sleep would not come, and his slumber was dreamless.

The afternoon waned.  Paul, peeping from the loophole, saw the sun, red like fire, seeking its bed in the west, but the shadows were not yet over the clearing.  Refreshed by his sleep, and his nerves steadied, he no longer saw imaginary figures in the wilderness.  It was just a wall of red and yellow and brown, and it was hard to believe that men seeking his life lay there.  By and by the east began to turn gray, and over the clearing fell the long shadows of coming twilight.  Then Paul awakened Henry, and the two watched together.

The shadows lengthened and deepened, a light wind arose and moaned among the oaks and beeches, a heavy, dark veil was drawn across the sky, and the forest melted into a black blur.  Now Henry looked with all his eyes and listened with all his ears, because he knew that what the warriors wanted, the covering veil of the night, had come.

It was a very thick and black night, too, and that was against him and Paul, as the objects in the clearing were hidden almost as well now as anything in the forest.  Hence he trusted more to ear than to eye.  But he could yet hear nothing, save the wind stirring the leaves and the grass.  Inside the little cabin it grew dark, too, but their trained eyes, becoming used to the gloom, were able to see each other well enough for all the needs of the defense.

Time passed slowly on, and to Paul every moment was tense and vivid.  The darkness was far more suggestive of danger than the day had been.  He took his eyes now and then from the loophole, for a moment, to glance at Henry’s face, and about the third or fourth time he saw a sudden light leap into the eyes of his comrade.  The next instant Henry thrust his rifle into the loophole and, taking quick aim, fired.