although arms were always ready. In front
was Henry Ware, scanning the trail, telling with an infallible eye how
old it was, where the enemy had lingered, and where he had hastened.

Mr. Pennypacker was there beside Paul Cotter. A man of peace he was, but
when war came he never failed to take his part in it.

"Do you know him?" he asked of Paul, nodding toward Henry.

Paul understood.

"No," he replied, "I do not. He used to be my old partner, Henry Ware,
but he's another now."

"Yes, he's changed," said the master, "but I am not surprised. I foresaw
it long ago, if the circumstances came right."

On the second morning they were joined by the men from Marlowe who had
been traveling up one side of a triangle, while the men of Wareville had
been traveling up the other side, until they met at the point. Their
members were now raised to a hundred and fifty, and, uttering one shout
of joy, the united forces plunged forward on the trail with renewed
zeal.

They were in dense forest, in a region scarcely known even to the
hunters, full of little valleys and narrow deep streams. The Indian
force had suddenly taken a sharp turn to the westward, and the knowledge
of it filled the minds of Ross and Sol with misgivings.

"Maybe they know we're following 'em," said Ross; "an' for that reason
they're turnin' into this rough country, which is just full of ambushes.
If it wasn't for bein' called a coward by them hot-heads I'd say it was
time for us to wheel right about on our own tracks, an' go home."

"You can't do nothin' with 'em," said Sol, "they wouldn't stand without
hitchin', an' we ain't got any way to hitch 'em. There's goin' to be a
scrimmage that people'll talk about for twenty years, an' the best you
an' me can do, Tom, is to be sure to keep steady an' to aim true."

Ross nodded sadly and said no more. He looked down at the trail, which
was growing fresher and fresher.

"They're slowin' up, Sol," he said at last, "I think they're waitin' for
us. You spread out to the right and I'll go to the left to watch ag'in
ambush. That boy, Henry Ware'll see everything in front."

In view of the freshening trail Mr. Ware ordered the little army to stop
for a few moments and consider, and all, except the scouts on the flanks
and in front, gathered in council. Before them and all around them lay
the hills, steep and rocky but clothed from base to crest with dense
forest and undergrowth. Farther on were other and higher hills