Although it was very dark his eyes had grown used to it and he could see some distance. Yet his range of vision was not broken by the figure of any warrior, and he began to wonder. Could the vigilance of the savages have relaxed? Was it possible that they were keeping no guard near the entrance? While he was wondering he crept directly upon the sentinel. He was a huge savage, inured to cold and wet and he had lain almost flat in the grass. Hearing a slight sound scarce a yard away he turned and the eyes of red forest runner and white forest runner looked into one another. Henry was the first to recover from his surprise and the single second of time was worth diamonds and rubies to him. Dropping his rifle he reached out both powerful hands and seized the warrior. The loud cry of alarm that had started from the chest never got past the barrier of those fingers, and the compressing grasp was so deadly that the Indian's hands did not reach for tomahawk or knife. Instead they flew up instinctively and tried to tear away those fingers of iron. But the man of old might as well have tried to escape from the jaws of the saber-toothed tiger. The great forest runner was exerting all his immense strength, and he was nerved, too, by the imminent danger to his friends and himself. No slightest sound must escape from the red throat. A single cry would reach the warriors below, and then the whole yelling pack would be upon him. The warrior's hands grasped his wrists and pulled at them frantically. He was a powerful savage with muscles like knotted ropes, but there was no man in all the wilderness who could break that grasp. His breath came fitfully, his face became swollen and then Henry, turning him over on his back, took his fingers away. The warrior was not dead, but he would revive slowly and painfully and for days there would be ten red and sore spots on his throat, where the fingers had sunk in. An ordinary scout would have thrust his knife at once into the heart of the warrior. It would have been the safest way, but Henry could not do it. He saw the great chest of the savage trembling as the breath sought a way to his lungs. He took his rifle, powder horn, bullet pouch, tomahawk and knife, and, bending low in the foliage, ran swiftly for the mouth of the cave. He was quite confident that the fallen warrior was the last sentinel, and as he approached the entrance he called again and again in a loud whisper: "Don't fire! Don't fire! It's me, Henry!" At last came the whisper in reply: "All right, Henry, we're waitin'." He recognized the voice of Silent Tom, and the next instant he was inside, his hand and that of Tom Ross meeting in a powerful grasp, while Paul and Long Jim, aroused from sleep, expressed their delight in low words and strong handshakes. "How in thunder did you git in, Henry?" asked Long Jim.