ich farms
should the danger from the Indians ever permit it to be settled. Farther
back from the river on each hand the country was broken and mountainous
and afforded excellent hiding-places for large bodies of Indians, as only
rattlesnakes, copperheads, wolves and wildcats lived there.

My mood was equal to overdaring, and all because of Patsy Dale. When the
sun swung into its western arc I halted where a large number of warriors
had broken their fast. I ate some food and pushed on. After two miles of
travel I came to a branching of the trail. Two of the band had turned off
to the northeast. My interest instantly shifted from the main trail to the
smaller one, for I assumed the two were scouting some particular
neighborhood, and that by following it I would learn the object of their
attention and be enabled to give warning.

That done, the footing would lead me back to the main band. The signs were
few and barely sufficient to allow me to keep up the pursuit. It was not
until I came to a spring, the overflow of which had made muck of the
ground, that I was afforded an opportunity to inspect the two sets of
tracks. One set was made by moccasins almost as small as those I had given
to Patricia Dale.

But why a squaw on a war-path? It was very puzzling. From the amount of
moisture already seeped into the tracks I estimated the two of them had
stood there within thirty minutes. My pursuit became more cautious. Not
more than twenty rods from the spring I came to a trail swinging in from
the east, as shown by a broken vine and a bent bush.

The newcomer had moved carelessly and had fallen in behind the two
Indians. I stuck to the trail until the diminished sunlight warned me it
would soon be too dark to continue. Then I caught a whiff of burning wood
and in ten minutes I was reconnoitering a tiny glade.

My first glance took in a small fire; my second glance dwelt upon a scene
that sent me into the open on the jump. An Indian sat at the foot of a
walnut-tree, his legs crossed and his empty hands hanging over his knees.
At one side crouched a squaw, her long hair falling on each side of her
face and hiding her profile. In a direct line between me and the warrior
stood Shelby Cousin, his rifle bearing on the warrior.

My step caused him to turn, expecting to behold another native. The man on
the ground made no attempt to take advantage of the interruption; and in
the next second Cousin's long double-barrel rifle was agai