Without any great danger to himself he had made the buffaloes serve him, and he could still hear them bellowing and crashing in their frantic flight. Although no lives had been lost, everything in the camp had been trodden flat. All of their cooking utensils had been smashed, many of their rifles had been broken, and, the canoes drawn upon the bank, had been ground under the hoofs of the buffaloes. A hurricane could not have made a wreck more complete. Henry saw Alloway emerge from the forest and come back to the scene of ruin. He had taken off his coat before he lay down, but only fragments of it remained now. He was red with anger and he swore violently. Yellow Panther and Red Eagle had lost their blankets, but, whatever they felt, they kept it to themselves. They looked upon the trodden camp, but they did not lose their dignity. "What is this? What is this? What is this?" stuttered Alloway in his wrath. "We seem, sir, to have been run over by a herd of buffaloes," said Wyatt, smoothly. "And does this sort of thing happen often in these woods?" "I can't say that I've heard of such a case before, but even if it's a single instance we're the victims of it." Alloway glared at Wyatt, but he knew that he could not afford to quarrel with the young renegade, who had great influence with the tribes. He picked up the fragments of his red coat and looked at them ruefully. "I didn't know that the herds were ever so large in this forest country," he said to Blackstaffe. "It's seldom so," said the older renegade. "Is it their habit to rise up at midnight and gallop over men's camps?" "It is not." "Then how do you account for such behavior?" Blackstaffe shrugged his shoulders and spoke a few words in their own tongue to the chiefs. Then he turned back to Colonel Alloway. "The chiefs tell me," he said, "that the buffaloes were driven by a demon, an immense figure, preceded by whirling circles of fire. The evil spirit, they say, is upon them." "And do you believe such nonsense?" "A continuous life in the deep woods gives one new beliefs. I thought I caught a glimpse of such a figure, but when I tried for a second look it was gone. But whether right or wrong you can see what has happened. Our camp has been destroyed and with it most of the canoes. We have lost much, and the Indians are greatly alarmed. It is superstition, not fear, that has affected them." "In my opinion," said Braxton Wyatt, "it was a trick of Henry Ware's. He drove those buffaloes down upon us." "Very likely," said Blackstaffe, "but you can't persuade the Indians so." "Nor me either," said Alloway gruffly. "You can't tell me that a backwoods youth can do so much."