Braxton Wyatt trembled, and the cold sweat came again on his forehead.  If only those rifles were not there in the thicket!  A mighty power seemed to draw him about for one look, only one!  But he did not dare—­it was death!—­and with a supreme effort he wrenched himself away.

“I was wrong,” he said.  “I was eager for war, eager to see the Shawnees and Miamis go together against the white settlements in the south—­so eager that I forgot the men.  But I remember them now.”

“Have you a crooked tongue?” asked Yellow Panther.

“No, no!” cried Braxton Wyatt, in mortal terror of the three rifles.  “I had, but I have not now!  I am telling you the truth!  As I live I am, Yellow Panther!  I was anxious for the war, anxious as you are, and it brought a cloud before my eyes.  I could not remember then, but I remember now!  The men were true Shawnees, and the Shawnee nation does not wish to go on the great war trail this year.”

Yellow Panther looked at him with indignation and contempt, and hesitated.  Braxton Wyatt trembled once more.  Would the chief believe?  He must believe!  He must make him believe, or he would die!

“I wished to tell you before we started, Yellow Panther,” he said, “but I feared then your just anger.  Now we have lost the trail, and I must save you from further trouble.  Why should I tell you this now if it is not true?  Why else should I avow that I have spoken false words?”

Yellow Panther looked at the unhappy figure and face, and believed.

“It is enough,” he said.  “We will go back to our own village.  Come!”

He spoke to his warriors, and they returned swiftly on their own tracks to the Miami village.  Braxton Wyatt went with them, and he dared not look back once at that fateful clump of bushes.

When they were gone far beyond sight, Henry Ware, Tom Ross, and Shif’less Sol rose up, looked at each other, and laughed.

“That wuz well done, Henry,” said Shif’less Sol lazily.  “I never knowed a purtier trick to be told.  He’s clean caught in his own net.  If he wuz to tell the truth now to the chief, Yellow Panther wouldn’t believe him.”

“And if he were to believe him, Yellow Panther, in his anger, would tomahawk him,” said Henry Ware, “No, Braxton Wyatt will not dare to tell.”

“And now we may take it easy,” said Tom Ross.  “But I wouldn’t like to be in your place, Henry, ef ever you wuz to fall into the hands uv Yellow Panther an’ that renegade.”

“I’ll take care that I don’t have any such bad luck,” said Henry.  “And now we must find Paul and Jim.”

Serenely satisfied, they resumed their journey, but now they went at a slower gait.

CHAPTER XIV

IN WINTER QUARTERS

The three walked slowly on for a long time, curving about gradually to the region in which Paul and Jim Hart remained hidden.  They did not say much, but Shif’less Sol was slowly swelling with an admiration which was bound to find a vent some time or other.