at,
fired at the foremost of the invaders. His bullet missed, and Henry, not
noticing him, rushed toward the little cabin. Here he saw some bedding,
evidently taken with the boat from its former owners, and he emptied the
coals from the iron pot among it. A blaze instantly sprang up and spread
with great rapidity. Despite the heat, Henry scattered the burning cloth
everywhere with a canoe paddle that lay on the floor. Seth Cole and Tom
Wilmore were also setting the boat on fire in a half dozen places.

The flames roared around them, and then they rushed upon the deck, where
the sounds of conflict had begun. There were renegades as well as
Indians upon the boat, and both soon realized that the invaders were
human beings, not spirits or ghosts. Several shots were fired. A man
from Fort Prescott was slightly wounded in the shoulder, and the red
blood was streaking his white skin. But one of the invaders had used his
tomahawk to terrible purpose--the figure of a warrior lay motionless
upon the deck.

As Henry sprang to the relief of his comrades he ran directly into some
one. The two recoiled, but their faces were then not more than a foot
apart, and Henry recognized Braxton Wyatt. Wyatt knew him, too, and
exclaimed: "Henry Ware!" He had been sleeping upon the boat and
instantly he raised a pistol to make an end of the one whom he hated.
Henry had no time to draw tomahawk or knife, but before the trigger
could be pulled he seized the renegade in the powerful clasp of his bare
arms.

The excitement of the moment, the imminence of the crisis, gave a
superhuman strength to the great youth. He lifted Braxton Wyatt from his
feet, whirled him into the air, and then sent him like a stone from a
sling into the deep water of the Ohio. The renegade uttered a cry as he
sank, but when he came up again he struggled for the shore, not for the
boat. The renegade McKee had already been driven overboard, and the
Indians, who alone were left on the boat, felt their superstition
returning when they saw Braxton Wyatt tossed into the river as if by the
hand of omnipotence. The flames, too, had gained great headway, and were
now roaring high above the deck and the heat was increasing fast. If
these were devils--and devils they certainly must be!--they had brought
with them fire which could not be fought.

The Indians hesitated no longer, and the last of them, leaping
overboard, swam for the land.

"It's time for us to go, too," said Henry