d spent two
or three days here, and he could account for the fact only on the ground
that some division of counsels had occurred. Perhaps the weather had
been stormy meanwhile, and the bark shelters had been constructed for
the officers and chiefs.

He spent a night in this camp and used one of the shelters, as it began
to rain heavily just after dark. It was a little place, but it kept him
dry and he watched with interest as the wind and rain drove across the
opening and through the forest. He was as close and snug as a bear in
its lair, but the storm was heavy with thunder and vivid with lightning.
The lightning was uncommonly bright. Frequently the wet boughs and trees
stood out in the glare like so much carving, and Henry was forced to
shut his dazzled eyes. But he was neither lonely nor afraid. He
recognized the tremendous power of nature, but it seemed to him that he
had his part here, and the whole was to him a majestic and beautiful
panorama.

Henry remembered the fight that he and his comrades had had at the
deserted village, and he found some similarity in his present situation,
but he did not anticipate the coming of another enemy, and, secure in
the belief, he slept while the storm still blew. When morning came, the
rain had ceased. He replenished his food supplies with a deer that he
had shot by the way and he cooked a little on one of the heaps of stones
that the Indians had used for the same purpose. When he had eaten he
glanced at the other bark shelters and he saw the name of Braxton Wyatt
cut on one of them. Henry shuddered with aversion. He had seen so much
of death and torture done on the border that he could not understand how
Simon Girty, Braxton Wyatt and their like could do such deeds upon their
own countrymen. But he felt that the day was coming fast when many of
them would be punished.

He began the great trail anew upon turf, now soft and springy from the
rain, and, refreshed by the long night's sleep in the bark shelter, he
went rapidly. Eight or ten miles beyond the camp the trail made an
abrupt curve to the eastward. Perhaps they were coming to some large
river of which the Indian scouts knew and the turn was made in order to
reach a ford, but he followed it another hour and there was no river.
The nature of the country also indicated that no great stream could be
at hand, and Henry believed that it signified a change of plan, a belief
strengthened by a continuation of the trail toward t