nk I could ever be happy again if we went straight from
Fort Penn to Kentucky."

Henry understood him perfectly.

"No, Paul," he said, "I don't want to go, either, and I know the others
don't. Maybe you are not willing to tell why we want to stay, but it is
vengeance. I know it's Christian to forgive your enemies, but I can't
see what I have seen, and hear what I have heard, and do it."

"When the news of these things spreads," said Paul, "they'll send an
army from the east. Sooner or later they'll just have to do it to punish
the Iroquois and their white allies, and we've got to be here to join
that army."

"I feel that way, too, Paul," said Henry.

They were joined later by the other three, who stayed a little while,
and they were in accord with Henry and Paul.

Then they began their circles about the camp again, always looking and
always listening. About two o'clock in the morning they heard a scream,
but it was only the cry of a panther. Before day there were clouds, a
low rumble of distant thunder, and faint far flashes of lightning. Henry
was in dread of rain, but the lightning and thunder ceased, and the
clouds went away. Then dawn came, rosy and bright, and all but three
rose from the earth. The three-one woman and two children-had died in
silence in the night, and they were buried, like the others, in shallow
graves in the woods. But there was little weeping or external mourning
over them. All were now heavy and apathetic, capable of but little more
emotion.

Carpenter resumed his position at the head of the column, which now
moved slowly over the mountain through a thick forest matted with
vines and bushes and without a path. The march was now so painful
and difficult that they did not make more than two miles an hour. The
stronger of them helped the men to gather more whortleberries, as it was
easy to see that the food they had with them would never last until they
reached Fort Penn, should they ever reach it.

The condition of the country into which they had entered steadily grew
worse. They were well into the mountains, a region exceedingly wild and
rough, but little known to the settlers, who had gone around it to build
homes in the fertile and beautiful valley of Wyoming. The heavy forest
was made all the more difficult by the presence everywhere of almost
impassable undergrowth. Now and then a woman lay down under the bushes,
and in two cases they died there because the power to live was no long