r departure."

"Good," exclaimed the chief, whose keen ears had caught the
low-whispered conversation, "we won't die yet, though. Die in our own
wigwam when Great Spirit tolls the bell of mystery."

Walter was off like a shot, and the young Seminole soon stood by his
father's couch. While the two indulged in earnest conversation in
their own tongue, the captain and Charley worked hastily, for the sun
was already setting. What things they dared risk carrying were hustled
into the frail canoes. One of the couches was conveyed to the dugout
and spread out in the bottom and two of the thickest blankets spread on
top of the leaves. The ponies were cast loose to shift for themselves.
Their remaining stuff was shoved into the water-proof bag and buried in
a high spot. By the time this was done, the first shades of night had
fallen. At Charley's suggestion, all hurried into the barricade, and
for fifteen minutes poured a hail of bullets into the forest to
convince the outlaws that they were still there and on the alert.

Then all hurried back to the camp. Many hands made easy and gentle
work of conveying the wounded man from his couch to the comfortable bed
in the dugout. The young Indian took his place in the stern of the
ticklish craft, and with a single shove of his long pole sent it far
out into the stream. The captain, with Chris, followed a few yards
behind, paddling with soft noiseless strokes. A few yards in their
wake came the last canoe containing Walter and Charley, and quickly the
outline of the point was lost in the darkness behind.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FLIGHT BY NIGHT.

As the canoes glided silently towards the convicts' camp the paddle
strokes of the fugitives grew slower and more guarded, the blades of
the paddles were no longer lifted clear of the water lest the falling
drops from them should be heard by those on shore. The river narrowed
suddenly opposite the point, and the canoes would be compelled to pass
within a hundred feet of the enemy's camp. All of the convicts might
be in the woods surrounding the hunters' camp, waiting to close in on
their supposed victims, but there was a chance that they had had the
foresight to count upon this very attempt at escape and had left some
of their number on the point to cut off the retreat.

Charley thought of all this as he knelt in the stern of his little
craft and plied the paddle slowly and with infinite caution, his every
nerve tense, and