e clouds rolled up and the smoke and
vapors thickened in the forest, but through the blackness the lines of
flame still replied to each other.

Paul's excitement was so great that he could not keep himself down. He was
burning with fever, but passion seemed to be departing from him. He
thought that, if they were all to die, it was a privilege to die together.
He saw now the deep cool woods, a beautiful lake, and an island enclosed
within it, like a green gem in a blue setting. Paul's thoughts, and his
vision with them, were wandering into the past.

"Steady, Paul, steady!" said Henry. But Paul saw nothing now. A bullet,
singing merrily, gave him a leaden kiss, and he sank down very gently,
lying upon one arm, the red fast dyeing his buckskin hunting shirt.

Henry gave a cry when he saw Paul fall, and bent anxiously over his
friend. The light was faint, but the bullet seemed to have gone entirely
through the youth. Henry put his ear to his chest, and could hear his
heart still beating, though faintly.

"Hold 'em back!" he shouted to his friends, "and I'll help Paul!"

Shif'less Sol, Tom, and Long Jim, although overwhelmed with anxiety for
their young comrade, steadily turned their faces toward the foe, and
replied to his fire. Henry, while the bullets whistled above his head,
bent down and cut away Paul's hunting shirt. Yes, the bullet had gone
entirely through his body and it was lucky for Paul that it had done so.
No need now of the surgeon's probe. Henry bound up the wound tightly and
stopped the bleeding. Then he undertook to lift the lad; but Paul,
although still unconscious and a dead weight in his arms, groaned with
pain. Henry laid him gently back on the ground.

"Boys," he said, "Paul is too weak to be moved, and we've got to hold this
place until help comes or the enemy quits."

"I think the last skirmisher has escaped now," said Shif'less Sol, "but
here we stay."

He spoke for them all, and Henry, unable to do anything more for Paul,
turned his attention anew to the enemy. There was a sudden increase of the
firing in front. The clouds and vapors rolled back, and the dancing
figures in the thickets took on more semblance of reality. Suddenly Henry
uttered a cry. His eyes of almost preternatural keenness had recognized
one of the figures.

"What is it, Henry?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"Braxton Wyatt. He's in the thicket. I saw him a moment ago. I know his
face and figure too well to be mistaken."

"I s