ooked before he put
out his fire, and he did not stop until the night was well advanced and
the stars had sprung out in a dusky sky. Then he chose another dense
thicket and, lying down in it, was quickly asleep.

He awoke about midnight and saw a faint light shining through the woods.
He judged that it was a long distance away, but he resolved to see what
made it, being sure in advance that it was the glow of an Indian camp
fire.

He approached cautiously, looked from the crest of a low hill into a
snug little valley, and saw that his surmise was true.

About fifty warriors sat or lay around a smouldering fire, and he
inferred from their dress and paint that they were Shawnees. Four who
sat together were talking earnestly, and he knew them to be chiefs. It
was impossible to hear what they said, but he believed this to be a
party on the way to the great meeting at the mouth of Licking. It was
evident that he had not escaped too soon, and he withdrew as cautiously
as he had approached.

An excitable youth would have hastened on in the night at full speed,
but Henry knew better and could do better. He returned to his nest in
the thicket and fell asleep again, as if he had seen nothing alarming.
But he rose very early in the morning, and after a breakfast on the cold
deer meat, made a circle around the Indian camp, and continued his
southeastern journey at great speed.

He traveled all that day, and he saw that he was well into the enemy's
country. Indian signs multiplied about him. Here in the soft earth was
the trace of their moccasins. There they had built a camp fire and the
ashes were not yet cold. Further on they had killed and dressed a deer.
There was little effort at concealment, perhaps, none. This was their
own country, where only the roving white hunter came, and it was his
business, not theirs, to hide. Henry felt the truth of it as he advanced
toward the Ohio. He was compelled to redouble his caution, lest at any
moment he plunge into the very middle of a war band.

He passed more than a half dozen trails of large parties, and he felt
sure that, according to arrangement, they were converging on the Ohio,
at the point where the Licking emptied the waters and silt of the
Kentucky woods into the larger stream. Timmendiquas, no doubt, would be
there, and Henry's heart throbbed a little faster at the thought that he
would meet such a splendid foe.

He lay in a thicket about noonday, and saw over a hundred w