work.

CHAPTER IV

TAKING A "GALLEON"

Henry and Shif'less Sol spied upon the Spanish camp again the next day,
and returned with news that the two chiefs had departed, but that Braxton
Wyatt had remained, evidently intending to accompany Alvarez to New
Orleans, where they were sure the Spanish leader now intended going.

"I think, too," said Henry, "that they will break up camp in the morning
and march. I believe that they came up on the Mississippi, and will return
the same way."

"Then they have boats," said Paul in dismay, "and we have none."

"But we can get one," said Henry significantly.

"If you want a thing, jest go an' git it," said Shif'less Sol. "I remember
once when I wuz a leetle bit o' a boy back in the East, I hankered
terribly after some hickory nuts that I knowed wuz in a grove about a mile
from our house. I suffered days an' days o' anguish fur them hickory nuts,
wishin' mighty bad all the time that I had 'em. At the end o' two weeks I
walked over an' got 'em, an' my sufferin' stopped off short."

"That's just what we mean to do about our boat, step over and get it,"
said Henry laughing. But he did not divulge his plan and the others were
content to wait for the event.

As Henry had predicted, the Spanish camp broke up the following morning,
and Alvarez and his force took up a march almost due eastward. They
traveled in an easy fashion, and showed no signs of apprehension, Alvarez
deeming that fifty well-armed men were not in any danger from wandering
tribes. He did not know that five resolute borderers were following
closely behind him, even looking into his camp at night, and knowing every
important thing that he did. Braxton Wyatt may have suspected it, but he
said nothing, aware that it could not be prevented.

The five were well prepared. They carried a large supply of ammunition, a
blanket each, and jerked meat. If their food supplies gave out there was
the forest swarming with game, and they knew that it swarmed in the same
fashion all the way down to New Orleans. They would camp at sunset three
or four miles from the Spaniards, keeping watch the night through, and in
the morning it was easy enough to take up the trail of Alvarez and his
men, which, to their experienced eyes, was like a high road leading
through the forest.

One evening just as the sun was setting Henry parted some twining bushes
and looked over a cliff. The others came to his side and they, too, looked
as h