are surrounded already."

The young captain stared at Robert, but his eyes were full of incredulity. Several of the soldiers were standing near, and they too heard, but the warning found no answer in their minds. Robert looked around at the men asleep and the others ready to follow them, and, despite his instinctive liking for Colden, his anger began to rise.

"I said that you were surrounded," he repeated sharply, "and it's no time, Captain Colden, for unbelief! Mr. Willet, Tayoga and I saw the signals of the enemy, but Black Rifle here has looked upon the warriors themselves. They're led too by the French, and the best of all the French forest captains, St. Luc, is undoubtedly with them off there."

He waved his hand toward the north, and a little of the high color left Colden's face. The youth's manner was so earnest and his words were spoken with so much power of conviction that they could not fail to impress.

"You really mean that the French and Indians are here, that they're planning to attack us tonight?" said the Philadelphian.

"Beyond a doubt and we must be prepared to meet them."

Colden took a few steps back and forth, and then, like the brave young man he was, he swallowed his pride.

"I confess that I don't know much of the forest, nor do my men," he said, "and so I shall have to ask you four to help me."

"We'll do it gladly," said Robert. "What do you propose, Dave?"

"I think we'd better draw off some distance from the fire," replied the hunter. "To the right there is a low hill, covered with thick brush, and old logs thrown down by an ancient storm. It's the very place."

"Then," said Captain Colden briskly, "we'll occupy it inside of five minutes. Up, men, up!"

The sleepers were awakened rapidly, and, although they were awkward and made much more noise than was necessary, they obeyed their captain's sharp order, and marched away with all their arms and stores to the thicket on the hill, where, as Willet had predicted, they found also a network of fallen trees, affording a fine shelter and defense. Here they crouched and Willet enjoined upon them the necessity of silence.

"Sir," said young Captain Colden, again putting down his pride, "I beg to thank you and your comrades."

"You don't owe us any thanks. It's just what we ought to have done," said Willet lightly. "The wilderness often turns a false face to those who are not used to it, and if we hadn't warned you we'd have deserved shooting."

The faint whine of a wolf came from a point far in the north.

"It's one of their signals," said Willet. "They'll attack inside of an hour."

Then they relapsed into silence and waited, every heart beating hard.

CHAPTER II

THE AMBUSH

Robert now had much experience of Indian attack and forest warfare, but it always made a tremendous impression upon his vivid and uncommon imagination. The great pulses in his throat and temples leaped, and his ear became so keen that he seemed to himself to hear the fall of the leaf in the forest. It was this acute sharpening of the senses, the painting of pictures before him, that gave him the gift of golden speech that the Indians had first noticed in him. He saw and heard much that others could neither hear nor see, and the words to describe it were always ready to pour forth.

Willet and Tayoga were crouched near him, their rifles thrust forward a little, and just beyond them was Captain Colden who had drawn a small sword, more as an evidence of command than as a weapon. The men, city bred, were silent, but the faces of some of them still expressed amazement and incredulity. Robert's quick and powerful imagination instantly projected itself into their minds, and he saw as they saw. To them the cry of a wolf was the cry of a real wolf, the forest was dark, lonely and uncomfortable, but it was empty of any foe, and the four who had come to them were merely trying to create a sense of their own importance. They began to move restlessly, and it required Captain Colden's whispered but sharp command to still them again.

The cry of the wolf, used much by both the Indians and the borderers as a signal, came now from the east, and after the lapse of a minute it was repeated from the west. Call and answer were a relief to Robert, whose faculties were attuned to such a high degree that any relief to the strain, though it brought the certainty of attack, was welcome.

"You're sure those cries were made by our enemies?" said young Colden.

"Beyond a doubt," replied Willet. "I can tell the difference between the note and that of a genuine wolf, but then I've spent many years in the wilderness, and I had to learn these things in order to live. They'll send forward scouts, and they'll expect to find you and your men around the fire, most of you asleep. When they miss you there they'll try to locate you, and they'll soon trail us to these bushes."

Captain James Colden had his share of pride, and much faith in himself, but he had nobility of soul, too.

"I believe you implicitly, Mr. Willet," he said. "If it had not been for you and your friends the enemy would have been upon us when we expected him not at all, and 'tis most likely that all of us would have been killed and scalped. So, I thank you now, lest I fall in the battle, and it be too late then to express my gratitude."

It was a little bit formal, and a little bit youthful, but Willet accepted the words in the fine spirit in which they were uttered.

"What we did was no more than we should have done," he replied, "and you'll pay us back. In such times as these everybody ought to help everybody else. Caution your soldiers, captain, won't you, not to make any noise at all. The wolf will howl no more, and I fancy their scouts are now within two or three hundred yards of the fire. I'm glad it's turned darker."

The troop, hidden in the bushes, was now completely silent. The Philadelphia men, used to contiguous houses and streets, were not afraid, but they were appalled by their extraordinary position at night, in the deep brush of an unknown wilderness with a creeping foe coming down upon them. Many a hand quivered upon the rifle barrel, but the heart of its owner did not tremble.

The moonlight was scant and the stars were few. To the city men trees and bushes melted together in a general blackness, relieved only by a single point of light where the fire yet smoldered, but Robert, kneeling by the side of Tayoga, saw with his trained eyes the separate trunks stretching away like columns, and then far beyond the fire he thought he caught a glimpse of a red feather raised for a moment above the undergrowth.

"Did you see!" he whispered to Tayoga.

"Yes. It was a painted feather in the scalp lock of a Huron," replied the Onondaga.

"And where he is others are sure to be."

"Well spoken, Dagaeoga. They have discovered already that the soldiers are not by the fire, and now they will search for them."

"They will lie almost flat on their faces and follow, a little, the broad trail the city men have left."

"Doubtless, Dagaeoga."

Willet had already warned Captain Colden, and the soldiers were ready. Tayoga was on Robert's right, and on his left was Black Rifle to whom his attention was now attracted. The man's eyes were blazing in his dark face, and his crouched figure was tense like that of a lion about to spring. Face and attitude alike expressed the most eager anticipation, and Robert shuddered.