whistled softly. Yet the whistle, low as it was,
was undoubtedly a signal of alarm.

"Go at once, Henrietta," whispered Shepard, urgently. "It's important
that you shouldn't be held here, that you be left with a free hand."

"It's so," she said.

He stooped and kissed her on the brow, and, without another word, she
vanished among the cedars on the lower slope. Dick thought he heard a
moment later the distant beat of hoofs and he felt sure she was riding
fast and far. Then he turned his attention to the danger confronting
them, because a danger it certainly was, and that, too, of the most
formidable kind. But, first, he gave the map to Shepard to carry.

Sergeant Whitley came down the slope and joined them.

"I think we'd better lie down, all of us," he said.

Now the real leadership passed to the sergeant, scout, trailer and
skilled Indian fighter. It passed to him, because all of them knew that
the conditions made him most fit for the place. They knelt or lay but
held their weapons ready. The sergeant knelt by Dick's side and the
youth saw that he was tense and expectant.

"Is it a band of the Johnnies?" he whispered.

"I merely heard 'em. I didn't see 'em," replied the sergeant, "but I'm
thinkin' from the way they come creepin' through the woods that it's
Slade and his gang."

"If that's so we'd better look out. Those fellows are woodsmen and
they'll be sure to see signs that we're here."

"Right you are, Mr. Mason. It's well the lady left so soon, and that
we're between them and her."

"It looks as if this fellow Slade had set out to be our evil genius.
We're always meeting him."

"Yes, sir, but we can take care of him. I don't specially mind this kind
of fighting, Mr. Mason. We had to do a lot of it in the heavy timber
on the slopes of some of them mountains out West, the names of which I
don't know, and generally we had to go up against the Sioux and Northern
Cheyennes, and them two tribes are king fighters, I can tell you.
Man for man they're a match for anybody."

"Slade's men don't appear to be moving," said Shepard, who was on the
other side of the sergeant.

"Not so's you could hear 'em," said Sergeant Whitley. "They heard us
and they're creeping now so's to see what we are and then fall on us
by surprise. Guess them that's kneeling had better bend down a little
lower."

Warner, who had been crouched on his knees, lay down almost flat.
He did not understand forests and darkne