strengthened him and put a new sparkle in his blood.

"Thanks," he said as he politely returned the empty cup, and resumed his
seat on the knoll. Then Alvarez walked aside, and talked again in whispers
with the renegade.

Wyatt urged that Paul be held indefinitely. He would not talk at first,
but they must get from him the fullest details about the settlements in
Kentucky, the weak points, where to attack and when. If the settlements
were left alone they would certainly spread all over Kentucky and in time
across the Mississippi into the Spanish domain. Spain was far away, and
she could not drive them back. But the Spaniards could urge on the tribes
again, and with a hidden hand, send them arms and ammunition. White men
with cannon could even join the warriors, and Spain might convincingly say
that she knew nothing of if.

The words of the renegade pleased Francisco Alvarez. Deep down in his
crafty heart he loved intrigue and cunning.

"Yes, we'll hold him," he said. "He is a trespasser here, although I will
admit that he is not the kind of person that I expected to find in the
heart of this vast wilderness."

He glanced at Paul, who was sitting on the knoll, calm and apparently
unconcerned, his fine features at rest, his blue eyes lazily regarding the
forest. The blue of Paul's eyes was different from the blue of the eyes of
Alvarez. The blue of his was deep, warm, and sympathetic.

"Is it likely that Cotter is alone?" Alvarez asked of Wyatt.

"Not at all," replied the renegade. "He has friends, and I warn you that
they are able and dangerous. We must be on our watch against them."

"What friends?" asked the Spaniard incredulously.

"There is a group. They are five. Where one of them is, the other four are
not likely to be far away. There is Cotter's comrade, Henry Ware, a little
older, and larger and stronger, wonderful in the woods! He surpasses the
Indians themselves in cunning and craft. Then comes Sol Hyde, whom they
call the shiftless one, but swift and cunning, and much to be dreaded.
Look out for him when he is pretending to be most harmless. And then Tom
Ross, who has been, a hunter and guide all his life, and the one they call
Long Jim, the swiftest runner in the wilderness. Oh, I know them all!"

"Perhaps you have had cause to know them well," said the Spaniard in a
sardonic tone--he was a keen reader of character, and he understood
Braxton Wyatt.

But Braxton Wyatt ignored the taunt in his anxi