"Don't think of that again, great chief," he said. "It is a waste of time. He would endure the most terrible of all our tortures first. Think instead of his scalp hanging in your wigwam." The eyes of Red Eagle glistened. "It would be a great triumph," he said, "but our young men have chased him many times, and always he is gone like the deer. We have set the trap for him often, but when it falls he is away. None shoots so quickly or so true as he, and if one of our young men meets him alone in the forest it is the Shawnee over whom the birds sing the death song." "It's not his scalp that we want merely for the scalp's sake. You are a brave and great chief, O Red Eagle, and you know that Ware and his comrades are scouts, spies and messengers. It's not so much the warriors whom we lose at their hands, but they're the eyes of the woods. They always tell the settlements of our coming, and bring the white forces together. We must trap them on this march, if we have to spread out a belt of a hundred warriors to do it." "I hope the net won't have any holes in it. We overtake the great band tomorrow, and then you'll have all the warriors you need. They can be spread out on the flank as we march. Hark, Red Eagle, what was that?" Henry himself in his covert started a little, as the long whine of a wolf came from a point far behind them. One of the warriors on the other side of the fire returned the cry, so piercing and ferocious in its note that Henry started again. But as the chief, the renegade and all the warriors rose to their feet, he withdrew somewhat further into the thicket, yet remaining where he could see all that might pass. The far wolf howled again, and the near wolf replied. After that followed a long silence, with the renegade, Red Eagle and his men, standing waiting and eager. The signals showed that friends were coming to join friends, and Henry was as eager as they to see the arrivals. Yet he had a shrewd suspicion of their identity. Dusky figures showed presently among the trees, as a silent line came on. Red Eagle and Blackstaffe were standing side by side, and the renegade broke into a low laugh. "So Wyatt comes with his men, or most of them," he said. "I see," said the chief in a tone of chagrin. "And he comes without any prisoners." "But perhaps he brings scalps." "I see no sign of them." "It is yet too far." "If they came bearing scalps they would raise the shout of victory." Red Eagle, great chief of the Shawnees, shook his head sadly. "It is sure that those whom we pursued in vain tonight were those whom we left besieged in the cave." "I fear that you speak the truth. They bring no scalps, nor any prisoners to walk on red hot coals." He spoke sadly and Henry noted a certain grim pathos in his words, which were the words of a savage. Yet the attitude of Red Eagle was dignified and majestic as he waited.