Night had fully come. In the forest, as we were, it was impossible to see half a dozen paces in advance, and because of the trees were there no shadows to be cast, therefore it was necessary only to guard against making a noise. It can well be imagined that we moved stealthily while coming out from between the boulders, he going to one side and I to the other, the friendly night swallowing us up almost immediately. So far as the whereabouts of the Indians were concerned, we knew only that one or more of them must be directly above the cave over the fireplace, and it was reasonable to suppose there were others here or there guarding against a surprise. To avoid those who were acting as sentinels was the most difficult portion of our task. I made a wide détour, counting to ascend the mountain fifteen or twenty yards above where I believed the enemy were, and then coming down upon them from that direction in which they would least expect any interference, knowing full well that in order to make even such a journey an hour or more would be required, because my advance was necessarily so slow that I hardly took a single pace in a full minute. It was as if the forest was untenanted save by the beasts and birds whom God had placed there; I heard no sound, saw nothing betokening danger, until I was come forty paces or more from the starting-point, and then, so suddenly that I was literally stupefied by bewilderment, did two sinewy hands clutch my throat, bending me backward and yet further backward as if to crush my bones. Cry out I could not, because of that steel-like grasp upon my throat, and even though I had been able to call for help I would not, since by so doing it would have brought Giles March straight to his death; for I knew all too well that he would never pass unheeded an appeal from me, however great the danger which menaced him. CHAPTER XIV. UNEXPECTED AID I was well-nigh powerless in the grasp of the brawny savage, and, although nearly suffocated, there came into my mind the question as to how long I could stand the strain which he was putting upon me. Each second were my senses growing more and more dim, and yet I wondered whether I might live one minute or two, for it was a settled fact in my mind that death had then come, and there was no power which could be summoned to my aid to hold it back. Fortunately for me, although as a matter of course I did not understand it at the time, this human wolf of John Butler’s was as eager to keep the silence as I, for, not knowing how many of us might have come out of the cave, he naturally supposed I had at my back a sufficient force to meet those who were working on the mountainside above, and to his mind an alarm would be the same as turning the tables upon them.