sing a shot."

"A William Tell of the woods, so to speak!" said the heavy, gruff voice,
sounding an incredulous note.

"You'll believe me, sir, if you meet 'em," said Wyatt earnestly. "I
don't love 'em any more'n you do, much less perhaps, but I've learned
enough to dread their rifles. I was telling you about the one who is
such a terrible marksman, though the others are nearly as good. Last
night before the rain one of the Wyandots found the trace of a footstep
in the forest. It was a trace, nothing more, and not even an Indian
could follow it, but I've an idea that it's the very sharpshooter I was
telling you about."

"And what of it? Why should we care anything for a stray backwoodsman."

"He's very dangerous, very dangerous, sir, I repeat, and he's sure to
have four others with him."

"And who are the dreadful five?" There was a note of irony in the voice.

"The one of whom I spoke is named Henry Ware. There is another, a youth
of about his own age, named Paul Cotter. The third is Solomon Hyde, a
man of amazing skill and judgment. The other two are Tom Ross, a
wonderful scout and hunter, and Long Jim Hart, the fastest runner in the
West. It was he who brought relief, when we had the emigrant train
trapped. I think that all the five are somewhere near and that we
should beware."

The heavy, gruff voice was lifted again in an ironic laugh, and Henry,
creeping a yard or two more, saw through the leaves the whole group. The
English officer whom Wyatt had called Alloway, was a man of middle
years, heavily built. His confident face and aggressive manner indicated
that he was some such man as Braddock, who in spite of every warning by
the colonials, walked with blinded eyes into the Indian trap at Fort
Duquesne, to have his army and himself slaughtered. But now the English
were allied with the scalp-takers.

A half-dozen English officers, younger men, surrounded Colonel Alloway,
silent and attentive, while their chief talked with Wyatt. The older
renegade, Blackstaffe, was leaning against a tree, his arms folded
across his chest, a sneering look upon his face. Henry knew that he
thought little of European officers there in the woods, and out of their
element.

But the most striking figures in the scene were Yellow Panther, head
chief of the Miamis, and Red Eagle, head chief of the Shawnees. They
stood erect with arms folded, and they had not spoken either while
Alloway and Wyatt talked. They were imposing men, n