ning of open battle were at hand.

Henry Ware was hidden in an instant by the green foliage from the sight
of the Shawnees. Keen as were their eyes, trained as they were to
noticing everything that moved in the forest, he had vanished from them
like a ghost. But they knew that the enemy whom they had sought to draw
into their snare had slipped his head out of it before the snare could
be sprung. Their long piercing yell rose again and then died away in a
frightful quaver. As the last terrible note sank the whole savage army
rushed forward to destroy its foe.

As Henry Ware ran swiftly back to his friends he met both Ross and Sol,
drawn by the shot and the shouts.

"It was you who fired?" asked Ross.

"Yes," replied Henry, "they meant to lay an ambush, but they will not
have time for it now."

The three stood for a few moments under the boughs of a tree, three
types of the daring men who guided and protected the van of the white
movement into the wilderness. They were eager, intent, listening, bent
slightly forward, their rifles lying in the hollow of their arms, ready
for instant use.

After the second long cry the savage army gave voice no more. In all the
dense thickets a deadly silence reigned, save for the trained ear. But
to the acute hearing of the three under the tree came sounds that they
knew; sounds as light as the patter of falling nuts, no more, perhaps,
than the rustle of dead leaves driven against each other by a wind; but
they knew.

"They are coming, and coming fast," said Henry. "We must join the main
force now."

"They ought to be ready. That warning of yours was enough," said Ross.

Without another word they turned again, darted among the trees, and in a
few moments reached the little white force. Mr. Ware, the nominal
leader, taking alarm from the shot and cries, was already disposing his
men in a long, scattering line behind hillocks, tree trunks, brushwood
and every protection that the ground offered.

"Good!" exclaimed Ross, when he saw, "but we must make our line longer
and thinner, we must never let them get around us, an' it's lucky now
we've got steep hills on either side."

To be flanked in Indian battle by superior numbers was the most terrible
thing that could happen to the pioneers, and Mr. Ware stretched out his
line longer and longer, and thinner and thinner. Paul Cotter was full of
excitement; he had been in deadly conflict once before, but his was a
most sensitive tempera