sh was saying.

But the youthful leader of the party interrupted: "Go back? No, sir! The
one thing to do is to go forward, and take our goods with us without
further loss of time. We will get a good, stout cabin up and then we'll
be better prepared for trouble if it comes. And that prowler, you heard,
Tom, must have been the same cowardly wretch who shot old Jerry. We must
watch for him. We cannot be too careful, but if he is the same fellow who
fired on us and nearly killed Black Eagle's son, 'way back on the
Pennsylvania border, I think I can guess who it is, and I can tell you,
he is a coward. But let's get to work."

"I like yer spunk, lad, an' I like you, but what I want to say is, that
Tom Trout as some calls Fish, will stick by ye till ye get some sort of a
shack throwed up, anyhow."

"Bully for you, Tom! And bully for you, too, Ree," exclaimed John
springing up to begin whatever task awaited him. "I was beginning to get
away down in the mouth, the way Tom was talking a minute ago."

"We must take the goods out of the cart and pack them in convenient shape
for carrying," Ree directed, without further ado. "By dragging a few
things forward a hundred rods or so, then coming back for more and so on,
we should reach the river in a couple of days."

And so all fell to work with a will. The cart did not contain a heavy
load, as it would have been impossible for old Jerry to have hauled it
through the woods, up hills, across streams and boggy places. But when it
came to carrying forward everything except the cart, which must be
abandoned, without the aid of a horse, the task was found to be a most
laborious one.

The unpacking and rearranging consumed so much time that darkness had
come on before the last bundle of the merchandise and provisions had been
carried forward to the first stopping place, a little way beyond the top
of the bluff, in the valley below which the camp had been.

While John and Tom erected a shelter for the night, for the wind was cold
and raw, Ree returned to the valley to procure coals with which to start
a fire at the new camp. He found it necessary to enliven the dying embers
with a few fresh sticks of wood, and as he stooped over to blow greater
life into the struggling blaze which started up, he heard a rustling in
the leaves on the hill behind him, in the direction opposite that in
which his friends were. Like a flash he sprang away from the fire into
the half-darkness which filled th