always the hills at the back of his head. Once, when we caught a
glimpse of them from a place far up the James River, he stood like a
statue gazing at the thin line which hung like a cloud in the west. I
am upland bred, and to me, too, the sight was a comfort as I stood
beside him.

"The _Manitou_ in the hills is calling," he said abruptly. "I wait a
little, but not long. You too will follow, brother, to where the hawks
wheel and the streams fall in vapour. There we shall find death or
love, I know not which, but it will be a great finding. The gods have
written it on my heart."

Then he turned and strode away, and I did not dare to question him.
There was that about him which stirred my prosaic soul into a wild
poetry, till for the moment I saw with his eyes, and heard strange
voices in the trees.

Apart from these uncanny moods he was the most faithful helper in my
task. Without him I must have been a mere child. I could not read the
lore of the forest; I could not have found my way as he found it
through pathless places. From him, too, I learned that we were not to
make our preparations unwatched.

Once, as we were coming from the Rappahannock to the York, he darted
suddenly into the undergrowth below the chestnuts. My eye could see no
clue on the path, and, suspecting nothing, I waited on him to return.
Presently he came, and beckoned me to follow. Thirty yards into the
coppice we found a man lying dead, with a sharp stake holding him to
the ground, and a raw, red mass where had been once his head.

"That was your messenger, brother," he whispered, "the one who was to
carry word from the Mattaponey to the north. See, he has been dead for
two suns."

He was one of the tame Algonquins who dwelt by Aird's store.

"Who did it?" I asked, with a very sick stomach.

"A Cherokee. Some cunning one, and he left a sign to guide us."

He showed me a fir-cone he had picked up from the path, with the sharp
end cut short and a thorn stuck in the middle.

The thing disquieted me horribly, for we had heard no word yet of any
movement from the West. And yet it seemed that our enemy's scouts had
come far down into the Tidewater, and knew enough to single out for
death a man we had enrolled for service. Shalah slipped off without a
word, and I was left to continue my journey alone. I will not pretend
that I liked the business. I saw an Indian in every patch of shadow,
and looked pretty often to my pistols before I reached t