The file came on fast, Braxton Wyatt at its head. When the younger renegade reached the fire, he flung himself down beside it, seized a piece of deer meat, just cooked, and began to eat. "I'm famished and worn out," he said. "What did you do with the scalps, Braxton?" asked Blackstaffe, in silky tones--it may be that he thought the younger renegade assumed too much at times. "They're on the heads of their owners," growled Wyatt. "And how did that happen? You had them securely blockaded in a hole in a stone wall. I thought you had nothing to do but wait and take them." "See here, Blackstaffe, I don't care for your taunting. They slipped out, although we kept the closest watch possible, and as they passed they slew one of our best warriors. I don't know how it was managed, but I think it was some infernal trick of that fellow Ware. Anyway, we were left with an empty cave, and then we came on as fast as we could. We did our best, and I've no excuses to make." "I do not mock you," said Red Eagle gravely. "I have been tricked by the fox, Ware, myself, and so has Yellow Panther, the head chief of the Miamis. But we will catch him yet." "It seems that we have not yet made any net that will hold him," said Blackstaffe with grim irony. Since it was not he directly, but Red Eagle and Wyatt who had failed, he found a malicious humor in taunting them. "It is the general belief that it was this same youth, Ware, who blew up the scows on which we were to carry our cannon, and then sank the lashed canoes. He seems to be uncommonly efficient." Among the broken men and criminals who fled into the woods joining the Indians and making war upon their own kind, Moses Blackstaffe was an outstanding character. He was a man of education and subtle mind. It was understood that he came from one of the oldest of the eastern provinces, and that there was innocent blood on his hands before he fled. But now he was high in the councils of the Indian nations, and, like the white man of his type who turns savage, he had become more cruel than the savages themselves. His gaze as he turned it upon Braxton Wyatt was lightly ironical, and his tone had been the same. Again the younger renegade flushed through his tan. "I have never denied to him wonderful knowledge and skill," he said. "I have warned you all that he was the obstacle most to be dreaded. He has just proved it. Had he not been there to help 'em at the cave we should have got 'em all." "And they are giving the laurels of Shif'less Sol to me," said Henry to himself in the thicket. "I shall have to hand them over to him when we go back." But the great Shawnee chief, Red Eagle, had heard enough talk between the two white men. He was full of the wisdom of his race, and he did not intend that Blackstaffe and Wyatt should impair their value to the tribes by creating ill feeling against each other.