He lay on his back, floated a little with
the current, and then with strokes strong, swift and silent, swam back
again.

His eyes looked up into a blue sky, sprinkled with many little white
clouds golden at the edge. The huge flight of pigeons had passed and no
longer dimmed the sun. He could just see the last of the myriads on the
edge of the northern horizon. But there was a sudden flash of black
across the blue, and a hawk shot down into the forest. A bald eagle
sailed in slow majesty above the trees, and, well within the shelter of
the foliage near him, many small birds were twittering. The air over his
realm as well as the forests and waters was full of life.

He came out, allowed himself to dry in the sun, while he flexed and
tensed his powerful muscles. Then he dressed. The swim had been good,
and he was glad that he had taken the risk. He was aware that the forest
contained inhabitants much more dangerous than those he had looked upon
that morning, but he had not yet seen any sign of them, and he was one
who had learned to use his opportunities.

After luxuriating for a little while on the grass, Henry, rifle on
shoulder, walked swiftly forward. He had a definite purpose and it was
to rejoin his four comrades, Paul Cotter, Shif'less Sol Hyde, Long Jim
Hart and Tom Ross, who were not far away in the greenwood, the five,
since the repulse of the great attack upon the wagon train, continuing
their chosen duties as keepers of the trail, that is, they were
continually on guard in the vast forest and canebrake against the
Northwestern Indians who were making such a bitter war upon the young
Kentucky settlements.

Henry had known that they would come again. Kentucky had been a huge
hunting ground, without any Indian villages, but for that reason it had
been prized most highly by the savage. The same reason made the ground
all the more dangerous for the white people, because the Indians,
unhampered by their women and children, came only with chosen bands of
warriors, selected for supreme skill in battle and forest lore. No
seekers of new homes ever faced greater dangers than the little white
vanguard that crossed the Alleghanies into the splendid new land beyond.
Hidden death always lurked in the bush, and no man went beyond the
palisade even on the commonest errand without his rifle.

It was a noble task that Henry and his comrades had undertaken, to act
as watchers, and it appealed to them all, to him most becau