! I thought I
heard someone coming."

Tom and Grace were sitting by the campfire. The others of their party,
with the exception of Mrs. Shafto and the bear, were listening to the
fiddle and the thudding of the hob-nail boots of the lumberjacks as
they danced away the early hours of the evening.

"Never mind. The pup will take notice."

"The only thing the pup takes notice of is, as Emma Dean says, food!"
laughed Grace. "Someone _is_ coming, Tom."

"Hindenburg!" commanded Tom Gray sharply.

The bull pup, sleeping by the fire, roused himself, wiggled his stubbed
tail, and, rolling over on his side, yawned and promptly went to sleep
again. Tom Gray glanced quickly towards the shadows that lay to the rear
of them, and, as he did so, a figure appeared.

"Willy, is that you?" he demanded, as a familiar movement revealed the
identity of the figure.

"Yes."

Grace asked the Indian where he had been. He mumbled an unintelligible
reply, then turned to Tom.

"Two men come. They watch shack. Me want to shoot, but not do."

"Certainly not," rebuked Tom. "What do you think they want?"

"Come spy on camp. I spy on them. Fix guns and creep up. Look in windows
and whisper. Bah! No good. What do?"

"Have they rifles? Perhaps they are hunters," suggested Tom.

"No hunt. Me watch." Willy Horse melted into the shadows.

"Who can it be?" wondered Grace.

"Hunters, of course. Willy Horse's zeal has run away with his judgment.
I think--" Tom paused. Protesting voices were heard back in the forest,
voices raised in angry resentment. Two men suddenly burst out into the
light of the campfire, followed by Willy Horse close at their heels, his
rifle pressed against the back of a panting man.

CHAPTER XX

PEACE OR WAR?

"Here, here! What's this?" demanded Tom Gray, springing up. "Willy!"

"This is an outrage!" panted the man against whose back Willy Horse held
the rifle. The stranger's red hair fairly bristled as he cautiously
removed his hat and mopped the perspiration from face and forehead.
"I'll have the law on you, you low-down redskin!"

"Easy there, pardner. This Indian is not low-down," retorted Tom Gray in
a warning tone. "Willy is our friend. What is it you wish, sir?"

"Am I on the section recently purchased by Wingate & Gray?"

"You are, sir. I am Tom Gray. Mr. Wingate will be here shortly. Won't
you sit down?" urged Tom. "That is all right, Willy. Please ask
Lieutenant Wingate to come here," he added,