of the varmints are playing the spy?"

"There may be one, and there may be a dozen."

This answer, of necessity, was guess-work, for there was no possible
means of determining the number, since the hostiles in front so
regulated their progress that not a glimpse had been caught of the
almost invisible trail left by them.

And yet the matter was not wholly conjecture, after all.

"Dan'l," said Kenton, with a significant smile, "there's more than one
of 'em, and you and me know it."

The older smiled in turn and nodded his head.

"You're right; there's two, and may be more--but we know there's two."

Nothing could show more strikingly the marvelous woodcraft of these
remarkable men than their agreement in this declaration, which was
founded upon this fact.

There was a shade of difference between the tone of the last signal and
those that preceded it. You and I would have shaken our heads and
smiled, had we been asked to distinguish it, but to those two past
masters in woodcraft it was as absolute as between the notes of a flute
and the throbbing of a drum.

It was as if, after a Shawanoe had cawed three times, he permitted a
companion to try his hand, or rather his throat, at it, and he who made
the attempt acquitted himself right well.

"Now, Simon," remarked the elder, "as I make it, it's this way--they
mean to ambush the party at Rattlesnake Gulch."

"You're right! that's it," remarked Kenton, with an approving nod of his
head, "and if we don't sarcumvent 'em the varmints will have every
scalp, including ours."

"Rattlesnake Gulch" was a name given to a deep depression on the
Kentucky side of the river, and within one hundred yards of the stream.
It was less than a half a mile in advance of where the two rangers were
seated on the fallen tree, as the summer day was drawing to a close.

A trail made by buffaloes, deer, and other wild animals led through the
middle of this densely-wooded section. No doubt this path had been in
existence at least one hundred years. Beyond the gulch it trended to the
right and deeper into the woods, terminating at a noted salt lick,
always a favorite resort of quadrupeds whether wild or domestic.

The forest was so deep and matted with undergrowth, both to the right
and left of this depression, that nothing but the most pressing
necessity could prevent a person from using the trail when journeying to
the eastward or westward through that section. Evidently, the Shawanoes