of thunder and lightning, wind and rain. Many of the lodges were thrown
down, and when the storm finally whirled itself away, it was found that
the last of the prisoners, he of the long arms and long legs, had gone
on the edge of the blast.

Truly the Evil Spirit had been hovering over the Iroquois village.

CHAPTER VII. CATHARINE MONTOUR

The five lay deep in the swamp, reunited once more, and full of content.
The great storm in which Long Jim, with the aid of his comrades, had
disappeared, was whirling off to the eastward. The lightning was flaring
its last on the distant horizon, but the rain still pattered in the
great woods.

It was a small hut, but the five could squeeze in it. They were
dry, warm, and well armed, and they had no fear of the storm and the
wilderness. The four after their imprisonment and privations were
recovering their weight and color. Paul, who had suffered the most,
had, on the other hand, made the quickest recovery, and their present
situation, so fortunate in contrast with their threatened fate a few
days before, made a great appeal to his imagination. The door was
allowed to stand open six inches, and through the crevice he watched the
rain pattering on the dark earth. He felt an immense sense of security
and comfort. Paul was hopeful by nature and full of courage, but when he
lay bound and alone in a hut in the Iroquois camp it seemed to him that
no chance was left. The comrades had been kept separate, and he had
supposed the others to be dead. But here he was snatched from the very
pit of death, and all the others had been saved from a like fate.

"If I'd known that you were alive and uncaptured, Henry," he said, "I'd
never have given up hope. It was a wonderful thing you did to start the
chain that drew us all away."

"It's no more than Sol or Tom or any of you would have done," said
Henry.

"We might have tried it," said Long Jim Hart, "but I ain't sure that
we'd have done it. Likely ez not, ef it had been left to me my scalp
would be dryin' somewhat in the breeze that fans a Mohawk village. Say,
Sol, how wuz it that you talked Onondaga when you played the part uv
that Onondaga runner. Didn't know you knowed that kind uv Injun lingo."

Shif'less Sol drew himself up proudly, and then passed a thoughtful hand
once or twice across his forehead.

"Jim," he said, "I've told you often that Paul an' me hez the instincts
uv the eddicated. Learnin' always takes a mighty strong