Shif'less Sol laughed. He had a soft, mellow laugh that crinkled up the corners of his mouth, and made his eyes shine. There was no doubt that a man who laughed such a laugh was enjoying himself.
"I reckon you didn't have much trouble follerin' that trail o' ourn," he said.
Jim Hart answered the laugh with a grin.
"Not much," he replied. "It was like a wagon road through the wilderness. The ashes uv your last camp fire weren't sca'cely cold when I passed by."
"We're all here 'cept the fifth feller," said Tom Ross.
"The fifth will come," said Henry emphatically.
"Uv course," said Tom Ross with equal emphasis.
"And when he comes," said Shif'less Sol, "we take right hold o' the big job."
They lingered awhile over their breakfast, but saw no one approaching. Then they took up the march again, going steadily southward in single file, talking little, but leaving a distinct trail. They were only four, but they were a formidable party, all strong of arm, keen of eye and ear, skilled in the lore of the forest, and every one bore the best weapons that the time could furnish.
Toward noon the day grew very warm and clouds gathered in the sky. The wind became damp.
"Rain," said Henry. "I'm sorry of that. I wish it wouldn't break before he overtook us."
"S'pose we stop an' make ready," said Shif'less Sol. "You know we ain't bound to be in a big hurry, an' it won't help any o' us to get a soakin'."
"You're shorely right, Sol," said Jim Hart. "We're bound to take the best uv care uv ourselves."
They looked around with expert eyes, and quickly chose a stony outcrop or hollow in the side of a hill, just above which grew two gigantic beeches very close together. Then it was wonderful to see them work, so swift and skillful were they. They cut small saplings with their hatchets, and, with the little poles and fallen bark of last year, made a rude thatch which helped out the thick branches of the beeches overhead. They also built up the sides of the hollow with the same materials, and the whole was done in less than ten minutes. Then they raked in heaps of dead leaves and sat down upon them comfortably. Many drops of water would come through the leaves and thatch, but such as they, hardened to the wilderness, would not notice them.
Meanwhile the storm was gathering with the rapidity so frequent in the great valley. All the little clouds swung together and made a big one that covered nearly the whole sky. The air darkened rapidly. Thunder began to growl and mutter and now and then emitted a sharp crash. Lightning cut the heavens from zenith to horizon, and the forest would leap into the light, standing there a moment, vivid, like tracery.
A blaze more brilliant than all the rest cleft wide the sky and, as they looked toward the North, they saw directly in the middle of the flame a black dot that had not been there before.
"He's coming," said Henry in the quiet tone that indicated nothing more than a certainty fulfilled.
"Just in time to take a seat in our house," said the shiftless one.
Sol ran out and gave utterance to a long echoing cry that sounded like a call. It was answered at once by the new black dot under the Northern horizon, which was now growing fast in size, as it came on rapidly. It took a human shape, and, thirty yards away, a fine, delicately-chiselled face, the face of a scholar and dreamer, remarkable in the wilderness, was revealed. The face belonged to a youth, tall and strong, but not so tall and large as Henry.
"Here we are, Paul," said Shif'less Sol. "We've fixed fur you."
"And mighty glad I am to overtake you fellows," said Paul Cotter, "particularly at this time."
He ran for the shelter just as the forest began to moan, and great drops of rain rushed down upon them. He was inside in a moment, and each gave his hand a firm grasp.
"We're all here now," said Henry.
"All here and ready for the great work," said Shif'less Sol, his tranquil face illumined again with that look of supreme exaltation.
Then the storm burst. The skies opened and dropped down floods of water. They heard it beating on the leaves and thatch overhead, and some came through, falling upon them but they paid no heed. They sat placidly until the rush and roar passed, and then Henry said to the others:
"We're to stick to the task that we've set ourselves through thick and through thin, through everything?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"If one falls, the four that are left keep on?"
"Yes! yes!"
"If three fall and only two are left, these must not flinch."
"Yes! yes!"
"If four go down and only one is left, then he whoever he may be, must go on and win alone?"
"Yes! yes!" came forth with deep emphasis.
CHAPTER II
A FOREST ENVOY
A group of men were seated in a pleasant valley, where the golden beams of the sun sifted in myriads through the green leaves. They were about fifty in number and all were white. Most of them were dressed in Old World fashion, doublets, knee breeches, hose, and cocked hats. Nearly all were dark; olive faces, black hair, and black pointed beards, but now and then one had fair hair, and eyes of a cold, pale blue. Manner, speech, looks, and dress, alike differentiated them from the borderers. They were not the kind of men whom one would expect to find in these lonely woods in the heart of North America.
The leader of the company—and obviously he was such—was one of the few who belonged to the blonde type. His eyes were of the chilly, metallic blue, and his hair, long and fair, curled at the ends. His dress, of some fine, black cloth, was scrupulously neat and clean, and a silver-hilted small sword swung it his belt. He was not more than thirty.
The fair man was leaning lazily but gracefully against the trunk of a tree, and he talked in a manner that seemed indolent and careless, but which was neither to a youth in buckskins who sat opposite him, a striking contrast in appearance. This youth was undeniably of the Anglo-Saxon type, large and well-built, with a broad, full forehead, but with eyes set too close together. He was tanned almost to the darkness of an Indian.
"You tell me, Señor Wyatt," said Don Francisco Alvarez, the leader of the Spanish band, "that the new settlers in Kaintock1 have twice driven off the allied tribes, and that, if they are left alone another year or two, they will go down so deep in the soil that they can never be uprooted. Is it not so?"
"It is so," replied Braxton Wyatt, the renegade. "The tribes have failed twice in a great effort. Every man among these settlers is a daring and skillful fighter, and many of the boys—and many of the women, too. But if white troops and cannon are sent against them their forts must fall."
The Spaniard was idly whipping the grass stems with a little switch. Now he narrowed his metallic, blue eyes, and gazed directly into those of Braxton Wyatt.
"And you, Señor Wyatt?" he said, speaking his slow, precise English. "Nothing premeditated is done without a motive. You are of these people who live in Kaintock, their blood is your blood; why then do you wish to have them destroyed?"
A deep flush broke its way through the brown tan on the face of Braxton Wyatt, and his eyes fell before the cold gaze of the Spaniard. But he raised them again in a moment. Braxton Wyatt was not a coward, and he never permitted a guilty conscience to last longer than a throb or two.
"I did belong to them," he replied, "but my tastes led me away. I have felt that all this mighty valley should belong to the Indians who have inhabited it so long, but, if the white people come, it should be those who are true and loyal to their kings, not these rebels of the colonies."
Francisco Alvarez smiled cynically, and once more surveyed Braxton Wyatt, with a rapid, measuring glance.
"You speak my sentiments, Señor Wyatt," he said, "and you speak them in a language that I scarcely expected."
"I