ust a little
too stout for wilderness work, that is for the marching part of it, and
he was hurt cruelly in both body and spirit. As his general weakness
grew, the cry of the owl directly in their path and not far away was
like fire touched to an open wound.

"Can't some of the warriors go forward, ambush and shoot that fiend?" he
exclaimed in desperation to Blackstaffe.

"You saw what happened when we tried it an hour ago," replied the
renegade. "In the darkness one man has an opportunity over many. He
knows that all are his enemies, and he can shoot the moment he hears a
sound or sees a rustle in the bush. Besides, sir, we are confronted, as
Wyatt has told you, by the one foe who is the most dangerous in all the
world to us. There is something about him that passes almost beyond
belief. I'm not a coward, as these Indians will tell you, but nothing
could induce me to go into the forest in search of him."

Alloway made no reply, but he took off a cocked hat that he wore even in
the wilderness, and began to fan his heated face. A rifle cracked
suddenly, and the hat flew from his hand into the air. The Indians
uttered a long wailing cry like the Seneca "Oonah," but did not move
from their places or show any sign that they wished to pursue.

The colonel's empty hand remained poised in the air, and he gazed with
mingled anger and wonder at his hat, lying upon the ground, and
perforated neatly by a bullet. Wyatt, Blackstaffe and Cartwright looked
at him but said nothing. Even Wyatt felt a thrill of awe.

"That, sir, was a warning," he said at last. "He could have shot you as
easily."

"But why don't the warriors pursue? He could not have been much more
than a hundred yards away!"

"They're afraid, sir, and I don't blame 'em."

Wyatt himself showed apprehension. He knew the bitter hatred the
borderers felt toward all renegades. The name of Girty was already one
of loathing. Blackstaffe was another who could expect little mercy, if
he ever fell into their hands, and Wyatt himself knew that he had fully
earned the Kentucky bullet. He did not feel the superstition of the
warrior, but he regarded the gloomy depths of the forest with just as
much terror. There was no reason why the silent marksman who hung upon
them should not pick him out for a target.

They came to a creek running three feet deep, but they waded it and then
stood for a minute or two on the bank, wringing the water out of their
clothing. Colonel Allowa