“Why did you quit your post?” I asked him bluntly.

“There was a better post and more to see on the rock,” he said simply.

“You made a mistake.  Your business is to obey your commanding officer.  Do you understand?”

“The Black-Snake understands.”

“Did you discover nothing from your rock?”

“Nothing.  Deer moved in the woods.”

“Red deer,” I said coolly.

“A July deer is in the red coat always.”

“The deer you heard are red the whole year round.”

“Eho!  The Black-Snake understands.”

“Very well.  Tie your pack, sling it, and shoulder your rifle.  We march immediately.”

He seemed to be willing enough, and tied his points with alacrity.  Nor could I, watching him as well I might in so dark a spot, see anything suspicious in any movement he made.

“The Sagamore leads,” I said; “the Black-Snake follows; I follow him; after me the Mole; and the Oneidas close the rear....  Attention!...  Trail arms!  File!”

And as we climbed out of our pulpit and descended over the moss to the soundless carpet of moist leaves: 

“Silence,” I said.  “A sound may mean the death of us all.  Cover your rifle-pans with your blankets.  No matter what happens, no man is to fire without orders——­”

I stopped abruptly and laid my hand on the Black-Snake’s hatchet-sheath, feeling it all over with my finger-tips in the dark.

“Damnation!” I said.  “There are tin points on the fringe!  You might better wear a cow-bell!  Where did you get it?”

“It was in my pack.”

“You have not worn it before.  Why do you wear it now?”

“It is looser in time of need.”

“Very well.  Stand still.”  I whipped out my knife and, bunching the faintly tinkling thrums in my fingers, severed the tin points and tossed them into the darkness.

“I can understand,” said I, “a horse-riding Indian of the plains galloping into battle all over cow-bells, but never before have I heard of any forest Indian wearing such a fringe in time of war.”

The rebuke seemed to stun the Wyandotte.  He kept his face averted while I spoke, then at my brief word stepped forward into his place between myself and the Mohican.

“March!” I said in a low voice.

The Sagamore led us in a wide arc north, then west; and there was no hope of concealing or covering our trail, for in the darkness no man could see exactly where the man in front of him set foot, nor hope to avoid the wet sand of rivulets or the soft moss which took the imprint of every moccasin as warm wax yields to the seal.

That there was in the primeval woods no underbrush, save along streams or where the windfall had crashed earthward, made travelling in silence possible.

The forest giants branched high; no limbs threatened us; or, if there were any, the Sagamore truly had the sight of all night-creatures, for not once did a crested head brush the frailest twig; not once did a moccasined foot crash softly through dead and fallen wood.