“But I’m glad you did shoot,” said Paul.  “It was a mighty welcome sound to me.”

“Yes,” said Henry, with grim humor, “it was the right thing at the right time.  Hark to that!” A single note, very faint and very far, rose and was quickly gone, like the dying echo of music.  Only the trained ranger of the wilderness would have noticed it at all, but Henry Ware knew.

“Yes, they’ve heard,” he said, “and they’re telling it to each other.  They are also telling it to us.  They’re between us and Marlowe, and they are between us and Wareville, so we must run to the north, and run as fast as we can.”

He led the way with swift, light footsteps through the forest, and Paul followed close behind, each boy carrying on his shoulder two rifles and at his waist a double stock of bullets and powder.

Paul scarcely felt any fear now for the future.  The revulsion from the stake and torture was so great that it did not seem to him that he could be taken again.  Moreover, they had seized him the first time when he was asleep.  They had taken an unfair advantage.

The sun rose higher, gilding the brown forest with fine filmy gold, like a veil, and the boys ran silently on among the trees and the undergrowth.  Behind them, and spread out like a fan, came many warriors, fierce for their lives.  Amid such scenes was the Great West won.

CHAPTER II

IN THE RIVER

Paul, while not the equal of Henry in the woods, was a strong and enduring youth.  His muscles were like wire, and there were few better runners west of the mountains.  Although the weight of the second rifle might tell after a while, he did not yet feel it, and with springy step he sped after Henry, leaving the choice of course and all that pertained to it to his comrade.  After a while they heard a second cry—­a wailing note—­and Henry raised his head a little.

“They’ve come to the two who fell,” he said.

But after the single lament, the warriors were silent, and Paul heard nothing more in the woods but their own light footsteps and his own long breathing.  Little birds flitted through the boughs of the trees, and now and then a hare hopped up and ran from their path.  The silence became terrible, full of omens and presages, like the stillness before coming thunder.

“It means something,” said Henry; “I think we’ve stumbled into a regular nest of those Shawnees, and they’re likely to be all about us.”

As if confirming his words, the far, faint note came from their right, and then, in reply, from their left.  Henry stopped so quickly that Paul almost ran into him.

“I was afraid it would be that way,” he said.  “They’re certainly all around us except in front, and maybe there, too.”

Visions of the torture rose before Paul again.

“What are we to do?” he said.

“We must hide.”