urely
have been dead in another hour.

The boy lay on his side, and, in some convulsion as he lost
consciousness, he had drawn his arm about his head. Henry turned him
over until the cold reviving rain fell full upon his face, and then,
raising himself again, he listened intently. The battle was still moving
on to the southward, but very slowly, and stray warriors might yet pass
and see them. The tie of friendship is strong, and as he had come to
save Paul and as he had found him too, he did not mean to be stopped
now.

He stooped down and chafed the wounded youth's wrists and temples, while
the rain with its vivifying touch still drove upon his face. Paul
stirred and his pulse grew stronger. He opened his eyes catching one
vague glimpse of the anxious face above him, but he was so feeble that
the lids closed down again. But Henry was cheered. Paul was not only
alive, he was growing stronger, and, bending down, he lifted him in his
powerful arms. Then he strode away in the darkness, intending to pass in
a curve around the hostile army. Despite Paul's weight he was able also
to keep his rifle ready, because none knew better than he that all the
chances favored his meeting with one warrior or more before the curve
was made. But he was instinct with strength both mental and physical, he
was the true type of the borderer, the men who faced with sturdy heart
the vast dangers of the wilderness, the known and the unknown. At that
moment he was at his highest pitch of courage and skill, alone in the
darkness and storm, surrounded by the danger of death and worse, yet
ready to risk everything for the sake of the boy with whom he had
played.

He heard nothing but the patter of the distant firing, and all around
him was the gloom, of a night, dark to intensity. The rain poured
steadily out of a sky that did not contain a single star. Paul stirred
occasionally on his shoulder, as he advanced, swiftly, picking his way
through the forest and the undergrowth. A half mile forward and his ears
caught a light footstep. In an instant he sank down with his burden, and
as he did so he caught sight of an Indian warrior, not twenty feet away.
The Shawnee saw him at the same time, and he, too, dropped down in the
undergrowth.

Henry did not then feel the lust of blood. He would have been willing to
pass on, and leave the Shawnee to himself; but he knew that the Shawnee
would not leave him. He laid Paul upon his back, in order that the rai