not a vain and idle song. A strange shiver ran down
his spine, and the hair on his head felt alive.

The great youth raised his head. The shiver was still in his spine. All
his nerves and muscles were tense and drawn. The wind still sang on the
leaves, but it was a warning note to Henry, and he understood. He sat
rigid and alert, in the attitude of one who is ready to spring, and his
eyes, as he looked up as if to seek the invisible hand among the green
leaves, were full of fire and meaning.

Chance made the shiftless one glance at his comrade, and he was
startled.

"What is it, Henry?" he asked.

"I was hearing something."

"I hear nothin' but the wind."

"I hear that--and much more."

Shif'less Sol glanced again at his comrade, but Henry's face said
nothing, and the shiftless one was not a man to ask many questions. He
was silent, and Henry listened attentively to the melodious breath of
the wind, so gay, so light to one whose spirit was attuned only to the
obvious, but so full of warning to him. He looked up, but he could see
nothing. Nevertheless, the penetrating note came forth, never ceasing,
drumming incessantly upon the boy's brain.

"I think we'd better go back to the camp, Sol," he said presently.

"So do I," said Shif'less Sol, "an' report that thar's nothin' to be
found."

Henry made no reply as they plunged into the green thicket, treading
soundlessly on soft moccasins and moving with such skill that leaves and
boughs failed to rustle as they passed. But the note of the wind among
the leaves pursued the boy. He heard it long after the glade in which
they had sat was lost to sight, fainter and fainter, but full of
warning, and then only an echo, but a warning still.

The feelings color what the eyes see. Shif'less Sol beheld only a
splendid green forest that contained nothing but game for their hunting,
deer, bear, buffalo, wild turkey, and other things good, but Henry saw
over all the green an ominous, reddish tint. Game might be in those
woods--no doubt it was swarming there--but he felt another presence, far
more deadly than bear or panther.

The boy saw a small object on the ground, almost hidden in the grass,
and, without slackening his speed, he stooped and picked it up so
silently and deftly that Shif'less Sol, who was a little in advance,
neither saw nor heard him.

It was the feather of an eagle, one that might have dropped from the
wing of some soaring bird, but the quick eye of th