but a long time. The forest quality was still
strong within him. Although his sleep had all its restoring power, the
lightest noise in the undergrowth near him would have awakened him. But
he slept on through the morning, and into the afternoon.

A second party of savage hunters passed, five men carrying wild turkeys,
and they too did not dream that the enemy whom they dreaded so much lay
near. They had left the camp only that morning, and, the warriors
arriving from the river, had told before they left how they had been
pursued all through the night by one upon whom the Evil Spirit had
descended. Even in the day they would have avoided this being, and the
old medicine men who were in the camp were making charms to drive him
away.

It was the most brilliant part of the afternoon now. Nevertheless they
looked with a tinge of superstitious terror at the forests. The highly
imaginative mind of the Indian, clothes nearly all things with
personality, and for them an evil wind was blowing. The events of the
preceding night had been colored and enlarged by those who told them.
One or two had seen the form, gigantic and flaming-eyed, that had hung
upon their trail, and these warriors, fearing that they too might see
it, and in the open day, hung close as they bore their load of turkeys
back to the camp.

Henry did not awake until the west was growing dim, and then after the
fashion of the borderers he awoke all at once, that is, every nerve and
faculty was alive at the same time. Nothing had invaded his haunt in the
brushwood. His keen eyes showed him at once that no bush had been
displaced, and, with his rifle ready, he walked out into the opening.

He must get back into the little fortress that night. He had been gone
so long that Shif'less Sol and the others, although having the utmost
confidence in his powers, would begin to worry about him. Yet he knew
that it was unwise to approach the place until night came. Delay was all
the more necessary, because while he saw on the northern horizon the
smoke from the great camp, he saw also a smaller smoke rising from
another camp nearer their fortress. It was so near, in truth, that the
four must find it necessary to hide close within the walls.

The second smoke aroused Henry's apprehension. Perhaps a portion of the
camp had been moved forward merely to be nearer water or for some
kindred reason, but that did not keep it from being nearer the stone
fortress, nor from impeding