and the others sprang up and made
at top speed for the camp, the bullets whistling about them as they
went. Henry tried to follow, but that extraordinary weakness in his
knees increased, and it was growing quite dark. He had risen to his
feet, but he sank down despite every effort of the will, and he saw a
dim world whirling about him. A dozen dusky figures shot out of the
obscurity. One raised a tomahawk aloft, but another stopped the arm in
its descent.

He was conscious that the dusky figures stood about him in a ring,
looking at him intently. But he was fast growing dizzier, and his
eyelids were uncommonly heavy. He gave back their looks with defiance,
and then he sank to the ground, unconscious.

Henry revived in a half hour. Some one had thrown water on his face, and
he found himself sitting up, but with his hands tied securely behind his
back. His head ached terribly, and he felt that his hair was thick with
blood. But he knew at once that it was only a glancing wound, and that
the effects, caused by the impact of the bullet upon the skull, were
passing.

He was a prisoner, but all his alertness and powers were returning. He
was not one ever to give up hope, and a single glance was enough to tell
him the whole situation. A half dozen warriors stood about him, eight or
ten more were returning, evidently from a chase, and one bore a ghastly
trophy at his belt. Then three had escaped! It was perhaps more than he
had hoped. He knew that another hideous decoration was in the belt of
some warrior near him, but he closed his eyes to it, nor would he look
at the body of the fallen Frenchman.

"You come with us," said a warrior in fairly good English.

Henry looked at the speaker and recognized at once a chief, a young man
of uncommon appearance, great in stature and with a fierce and lofty
countenance, like that of the ancient Roman, sometimes found in the
North American Indian. He was a truly impressive figure, his head
clean-shaven except for the defiant scalp lock which stood aloft
intertwined with small eagle feathers, a gorgeous red blanket from some
Canadian trading post thrown carelessly about his shoulders after the
fashion of a toga, a fine long-barreled Kentucky rifle lying in the
hollow of his arm, and a tomahawk and knife at his belt.

Henry felt instinctively that he was in the presence of a great man, a
great chief of the woods. He recognized here a spirit akin to his own,
and for a full minute the