For a week they pressed after the gang, wondering that they never saw a trace of the marks Ned and Kawque were to leave for them to follow. Edgar and Eli were afraid to put what they feared into words, but Tahata said bluntly--"We are on the Sells' gang trail, getting near him, yes; but Kawque never passed here; maybe him and Ned find Sells' camp first night, and creep in to get the girl, and--", Tahata finished his sentence with a significant gesture of his tomahawk. Edgar thought he would never see his son again, and an agony of remorse and sorrow swept over him. * * * It was a hot, dark night in the vast unexplored forest that covered all the country back of the lake fronts. The allies, united to save Bee, Canadian, American, and Mohawk, were camped round their fire, and their chiefs, Edgar, Eli, and Tahata, sat apart in council. Said Edgar--"We have found the man's stronghold, and he knows we are here, yet he does not send any word--evidently he does not hold Bee." "In other words," said Eli hoarsely, "she is dead in his hands before this, either by the mercy of God, or the--the handling of men." "We live, we are men, we can attack and do justice upon him," said Tahata the Mohawk, sententiously. [Illustration: "Then on the other side of the tree they saw her--or her spirit."] Then on the other side of the fire they saw her--or her spirit. In the beaded buckskin bravery of an Indian belle, with white feathers in her hair, she smiled at them, still the light-hearted girl who had never received anything but knightly treatment from any man. And behind her in the shadows they saw the faces of Ned, Chloe, and Kawque. "Papa Edgar, and Brother Eli, don't you know me?" she cried; and coming round the fire, she touched them with warm human hands, talking quickly as she told how after hearing Vere betray her, Kawque with a friend had rushed off to St. Davids. The place was on fire, Sells was close behind and the Americans coming. Kawque had no time to explain, he snatched the girl away, telling her who he was as Chloe caught up to them. Then because they were cut off from getting to the English lines, the other Indian took Bee to the Mohawk village deep in the forest, leaving Kawque to tell Bee's friends; but wishing the unhappy Vere to bear the full weight of Percy's anger, the scout said nothing of Bee till he was alone in the bush with Ned. Then they had gone to fetch the girl, and brought her after her brother's party. In silent thanksgiving Eli kissed his sister, and Edgar looked at Ned, standing up very straight in the fire-glow--"Will you--can you, shake hands?" he said huskily, holding out his own. Ned clasped it instantly, knowing that his honour among men was restored. Leaving Bee and Chloe carefully hidden, the men then went on to attack, capture--and dispose of Sells' gang, with the rough justice of the wild.