d them?" quoth Ringan. "To sift a score of murderers
out of a murderous nation will be like searching the ocean for a wave."

Then Shalah spoke.

"The trail is ten suns old, but I can follow it. The men were of the
Meebaw tribe by this token." And he held up a goshawk's feather. "The
bird that dropped that lives beyond the peaks of Shubash. The Meebaw
are quick hunters and gross eaters, and travel slow. We will find them
by the Tewawha."

"All in good time," I said. "Retribution must wait till we have
finished our task. Can you find the Meebaw men again?"

"Yea," said Shalah, "though they took wings and flew over the seas I
should find them."

Then we hastened away from that glade, none speaking to the other. We
camped an hour's ride up the river, in a place secure against surprises
in a crook of the stream with a great rock at our back. We were outside
the pale now, and must needs adopt the precautions of a campaign; so we
split the night into watches, I did my two hours sentry duty at that
dead moment of the dark just before the little breeze which is the
precursor of dawn, and I reflected very soberly on the slender chances
of our returning from this strange wild world and its cruel mysteries.

CHAPTER XVII.

I RETRACE MY STEPS.

Next morning we passed through the foothills into an open meadow
country. As I lifted up my eyes I saw for the first time the mountains
near at hand. There they lay, not more than ten miles distant, woody
almost to the summit, but with here and there a bold finger of rock
pointing skywards. They looked infinitely high and rugged, far higher
than any hills I had ever seen before, for my own Tinto or Cairntable
would to these have been no more than a footstool. I made out a clear
breach in the range, which I took to be old Studd's Clearwater Gap. The
whole sight intoxicated me. I might dream of horrors in the low coast
forests among their swampy creeks, but in that clear high world of the
hills I believed lay safety. I could have gazed at them for hours, but
Shalah would permit of no delay. He hurried us across the open meadows,
and would not relax his pace till we were on a low wooded ridge with
the young waters of the Rapidan running in a shallow vale beneath.

Here we halted in a thick clump of cedars, while he and Ringan went
forward to spy out the land. In that green darkness, save by folk
travelling along the ridge, we could not be detected, and I knew
enough of Indian w