ive
off her foes and mine; and as I saw the light smoke curling up through
the tree-tops I asked myself where those men were who had made their way
past us in such a dark and secret sort of way and with so much bad talk
back there in the middle of the night. I wondered if they had camped
where they could see the smoke of our fire, or hear our voices or the
other sounds we made.

I almost wished that they might. I had now in a dim, determined,
stubborn way claimed this girl in my heart for my own; and I felt
without really thinking of it, that I could best foreclose my lien by
defeating all comers before I dragged her yielding to my cave. It is the
way of all male animals--except spiders, perhaps, and bees--and a male
animal was all that I was that morning. I picked up my gun and told her
that I must find out where those men were before breakfast.

"No, no!" said she anxiously, "don't leave me! They might shoot
you--and--then--"

I smiled disdainfully.

"If there's any shooting to be done, I'll shoot first. I won't let them
see me, though; but I must find out what they are up to. Wait and keep
quiet. I'll soon be back."

I knew that I should find their horses' hoof-marks at whatever place
they had left the stream; and I followed the brook silently, craftily
and slowly, like a hunter trailing a wild beast, examining the bank of
soft black rooty earth for their tracks. Once or twice I passed across
open spaces in the grove. Here I crept on my belly through the brush and
weeds shoving my gun along ahead of my body.

My heart beat high. I never for a moment doubted the desperate character
of the men, and in this I think I showed good judgment; for what honest
horsemen would have left the Ridge Road, or if any honest purpose had
drawn them away, what honest men would have forced their horses to wade
in the channel of a swollen stream in the middle of the night? They must
have been trying to travel without leaving tracks, just as I had done.
Their talk showed them to be bad characters, and their fox-like actions
proved the case against them. So I crawled forward believing fully that
I should be in danger if they once found out that I had uncovered their
lurking-place. I carefully kept from making any thrashing or swishing of
boughs, any crackling of twigs, or from walking with a heavy footfall;
and I wondered more and more as I neared what I knew must be the other
end of the grove, why they had not left the water and ma