ened for us by a flash of
humor.

The next morning the sun relented, and the wine of his dawn was wine
indeed to our flagging hopes. Going down to wash at the river's brink, I
heard a movement in the cane, and stood frozen and staring until a great,
bearded head, black as tar, was thrust out between the stalks and looked
at me with blinking red eyes. The next step revealed the hump of the
beast, and the next his tasselled tail lashing his dirty brown quarters.
I did not tarry longer, but ran to tell Tom. He made bold to risk a shot
and light a fire, and thus we had buffalo meat for some days after.

We were still in the mountains. The trail led down the river for a bit
through the worst of canebrakes, and every now and again we stopped while
Tom and Weldon scouted. Once the roan mare made a dash through the
brake, and, though Polly Ann burst through one way to head her off and I
another, we reached the bank of Richland Creek in time to see her nose
and the top of her pack above the brown water. There was nothing for it
but to swim after her, which I did, and caught her quietly feeding in the
cane on the other side. By great good fortune the other horse bore the
powder.

"Drat you, Nancy," said Polly Ann to the mare, as she handed me my
clothes, "I'd sooner carry the pack myself than be bothered with you."

"Hush," said I, "the redskins will get us."

Polly Ann regarded me scornfully as I stood bedraggled before her.

"Redskins!" she cried. "Nonsense! I reckon it's all talk about
redskins."

But we had scarce caught up ere we saw Tom standing rigid with his hand
raised. Before him, on a mound bared of cane, were the charred remains
of a fire. The sight of them transformed Weldon. His eyes glared again,
even as when we had first seen him, curses escaped under his breath, and
he would have darted into the cane had not Tom seized him sternly by the
shoulder. As for me, my heart hammered against my ribs, and I grew sick
with listening. It was at that instant that my admiration for Tom
McChesney burst bounds, and that I got some real inkling of what
woodcraft might be. Stepping silently between the tree trunks, his eyes
bent on the leafy loam, he found a footprint here and another there, and
suddenly he went into the cane with a sign to us to remain. It seemed an
age before he returned. Then he began to rake the ashes, and, suddenly
bending down, seized something in them,--the broken bowl of an Indian
pipe.

"Shawne