th.

Had Ben Ripley seen the departure of the Seneca, he might have suspected
its meaning; but, unaware of it, he never dreamed of the new form which
the ever present danger thus assumed.

The Seneca, after leaving Red Wolf and the other warrior, walked
directly over the path leading away from the stream until well beyond
the sight of those thus left behind. He looked back, and, seeing nothing
of them, turned aside and moved off, until he arrived at a point beyond
the group of three resting on the fallen tree.

Thus, as will be seen, the Ripleys were between the two and Linna on
the one hand, and the single Seneca on the other. He knew the precise
location of the fugitives as well as if they had been in his field of
vision from the first.

He now began approaching them from the rear. Their faces turned away
from him, and everything favored his stealthy advance.

The huge spread of dirt and roots made by the overturning of the big
tree served as a screen, though even without this help he would probably
have succeeded in his effort to steal upon them unawares.

He stepped so carefully upon the dried leaves that no sound was made,
and the most highly trained ear, therefore, would not have detected him.

If Ben had once risen from his reclining posture and looked around,
if Mrs. Ripley had stood up and done the same, or if little Alice had
indulged in her natural sportiveness, assuredly one of them would have
observed that crouching warrior, gradually drawing closer, like the
moving of a hand over the face of a clock; but none saw him. Nearer and
nearer he came, step by step, until at last he stood just on the other
side of the mass of roots, and not ten feet from the boy.

With the same noiselessness, the crouching form bent over sideways and
peered around the screen. Then the dusky arm glided forward until the
iron fingers clasped the barrel of the rifle leaning against the root,
and the weapon was withdrawn.

He now had two guns, and Ben Ripley none.

Then the Seneca advanced, a weapon in either hand, and, presenting
himself in front of the amazed group, exclaimed--"Huh! how do,
bruder?--how do sister?"

Ben Ripley sprang up as if shot, and his startled mother, with a gasp of
affright, turned her head.

For one moment the boy meditated leaping upon the warrior, in the
desperate attempt to wrench his gun from his grasp; but the mother,
reading his intention, interposed.

"Do nothing, my son: we are in the