of theirs, yet so new,
few people lived beyond the palisades, but here were rich and scattered
settlements; and men, even in the face of great peril, are always loth
to abandon the homes that they have built with so much toil.

Tom Ross and Long Jim continued to pull steadily with the long strokes
that did not tire them, and the lights of the fort and houses sank out
of sight. Before them lay the somber surface of the rippling river, the
shadowy hills, and silence. The world seemed given over to the night
save for themselves, but they knew too well to trust to such apparent
desertion. At such hours the Indian scouts come, and Henry did not doubt
that they were already near, gathering news of their victims for the
Indian and Tory horde. Therefore, it was the part of his comrades and
himself to use the utmost caution as they passed up the river.

They bugged the western shore, where they were shadowed by banks and
bushes, and now they went slowly, Long Jim and Tom Ross drawing their
oars so carefully through the water that there was never a plash to
tell of their passing. Henry was in the prow of the boat, bent forward
a little, eyes searching the surface of the river, and ears intent upon
any sound that might pass on the bank. Suddenly he gave a little signal
to the rowers and they let their oars rest.

"Bring the boat in closer to the bank," he whispered. "Push it gently
among those bushes where we cannot be seen from above."

Tom and Jim obeyed. The boat slid softly among tall bushes that shadowed
the water, and was hidden completely. Then Henry stepped out, crept
cautiously nearly up the bank, which was here very low, and lay pressed
closely against the earth, but supported by the exposed root of a tree.
He had heard voices, those of Indians, he believed, and he wished to
see. Peering through a fringe of bushes that lined the bank he saw seven
warriors and one white face sitting under the boughs of a great oak.
The face was that of Braxton Wyatt, who was now in his element, with a
better prospect of success than any that he had ever known before. Henry
shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had spared Wyatt's life
when he might have taken it.

But Henry was lying against the bank to hear what these men might be
saying, not to slay. Two of the warriors, as he saw by their paint, were
Wyandots, and he understood the Wyandot tongue. Moreover, his slight
knowledge of Iroquois came into service, and gradua