bird far
away in the woods sounded clearly on the quiet air. Joe would not
have given heed to it had he been less attentive. He instantly
associated this peculiar bird-note with the sudden stiffening of
Silvertip's body and his attitude of intense listening. Low
exclamations came from the braves as they bent to catch the lightest
sound. Presently, above the murmur of the gentle fall of water over
the stones, rose that musical note once more. It was made by a bird,
Joe thought, and yet, judged by the actions of the Indians, how
potent with meaning beyond that of the simple melody of the woodland
songster! He turned, half expecting to see somewhere in the
tree-tops the bird which had wrought so sudden a change in his
captors. As he did so from close at hand came the same call, now
louder, but identical with the one that had deceived him. It was an
answering signal, and had been given by Silvertip.

It flashed into Joe's mind that other savages were in the forest;
they had run across the Shawnees' trail, and were thus communicating
with them. Soon dark figures could be discerned against the patches
of green thicket; they came nearer and nearer, and now entered the
open glade where Silvertip stood with his warriors.

Joe counted twelve, and noted that they differed from his captors.
He had only time to see that this difference consisted in the
head-dress, and in the color and quantity of paint on their bodies,
when his gaze was attracted and riveted to the foremost figures.

The first was that of a very tall and stately chief, toward whom
Silvertip now advanced with every show of respect. In this Indian's
commanding stature, in his reddish-bronze face, stern and powerful,
there were readable the characteristics of a king. In his deep-set
eyes, gleaming from under a ponderous brow; in his mastiff-like jaw;
in every feature of his haughty face were visible all the high
intelligence, the consciousness of past valor, and the power and
authority that denote a great chieftain.

The second figure was equally striking for the remarkable contrast
it afforded to the chief's. Despite the gaudy garments, the paint,
the fringed and beaded buckskin leggins--all the Indian
accouterments and garments which bedecked this person, he would have
been known anywhere as a white man. His skin was burned to a dark
bronze, but it had not the red tinge which characterizes the Indian.
This white man had, indeed, a strange physiognomy. The foreh