of blows and kicks laid upon him while bound
and helpless. Perhaps he was not a very emotional man. At all events
there was no sudden recognition of the favor he was receiving. And this
pleased Long-Hair, for the taste of the American Indian delights in
immobility of countenance and reserve of feeling under great strain.

"Wait here a little while," Long-Hair presently said, and without
lingering for reply, turned away and disappeared in the wood. Beverley
was free to run if he wished to, and the thought did surge across his
mind; but a restraining something, like a hand laid upon him, would not
let his limbs move. Down deep in his heart a calm voice seemed to be
repeating Long-Hair's Indian sentence--"Wait here a little while."

A few minutes later Long-Hair returned bearing two guns, Beverley's and
his own, the latter, a superb weapon given him by Hamilton. He
afterward explained that he had brought these, with their
bullet-pouches and powder-horns, to a place of concealment near by
before he awoke Beverley. This meant that he had swum the cold river
three times since night-fall; once over with the guns and
accouterments; once back to camp, then over again with Beverley! All
this with a broken arm, and to repay Alice for her kindness to him.

Beverley may have been slow, but at last his appreciation was, perhaps,
all the more profound. As best he could he expressed it to Long-Hair,
who showed no interest whatever in the statement. Instead of responding
in Indian, he said "damn" without emphasis. It was rather as if he had
yawned absently, being bored.

Delay could not be thought of. Long-Hair explained briefly that he
thought. Beverley must go to Kaskaskia. He had come across the stream
in the direction of Vincennes in order to set his warriors at fault.
The stream must be recrossed, he said, farther down, and he would help
Beverley a certain distance on his way, then leave him to shift for
himself. He had a meager amount of parched corn and buffalo meat in his
pouch, which would stay hunger until they could kill some game. Now
they must go.

The resilience of a youthful and powerful physique offers many a
problem to the biologist. Vital force seems to find some mysterious
reservoir of nourishment hidden away in the nerve-centers. Beverley set
out upon that seemingly impossible undertaking with renewed energy. It
could not have been the ounce of parched corn and bit of jerked venison
from which he drew so much s