es, I guess so. I played a joke on him--took his shirt and
put it on another fellow."

"Might jes' as well kick an' Injun. What has he ag'in you?"

"I don't know. Perhaps he did not like my talk to him," answered
Jim. "I am a preacher, and have come west to teach the gospel to the
Indians."

"They're good Injuns now," said Wetzel, pointing to the prostrate
figures.

"How did you find us?" eagerly asked Joe.

"Run acrost yer trail two days back."

"And you've been following us?"

The hunter nodded.

"Did you see anything of another band of Indians? A tall chief and
Jim Girty were among them."

"They've been arter me fer two days. I was followin' you when
Silvertip got wind of Girty an' his Delawares. The big chief was
Wingenund. I seen you pull Girty's nose. Arter the Delawares went I
turned loose yer dog an' horse an' lit out on yer trail.''

"Where are the Delawares now?"

"I reckon there nosin' my back trail. We must be gittin'.
Silvertip'll soon hev a lot of Injuns here."

Joe intended to ask the hunter about what had frightened the
Indians, but despite his eager desire for information, he refrained
from doing so.

"Girty nigh did fer you," remarked Wetzel, examining Joe's wound.
"He's in a bad humor. He got kicked a few days back, and then hed
the skin pulled offen his nose. Somebody'll hev to suffer. Wal, you
fellers grab yer rifles, an' we'll be startin' fer the fort."

Joe shuddered as he leaned over one of the dusky forms to detach
powder and bullet horn. He had never seen a dead Indian, and the
tense face, the sightless, vacant eyes made him shrink. He shuddered
again when he saw the hunter scalp his victims. He shuddered the
third time when he saw Wetzel pick up Silvertip's beautiful white
eagle plume, dabble it in a pool of blood, and stick it in the bark
of a tree. Bereft of its graceful beauty, drooping with its gory
burden, the long leather was a deadly message. It had been
Silvertip's pride; it was now a challenge, a menace to the Shawnee
chief.

"Come," said Wetzel, leading the way into the forest.

* * *

Shortly after daylight on the second day following the release of
the Downs brothers the hunter brushed through a thicket of alder and
said: "Thar's Fort Henry."

The boys were on the summit of a mountain from which the land sloped
in a long incline of rolling ridges and gentle valleys like a green,
billowy sea, until it rose again abruptly into a p