As he disappeared among the huts a voice struck on Jack’s ear. “Talk! Talk! Talk!” it said. “Much palaver! And it never does no good. I been a-listening and a-listening and you never got nowhere till he grabbed you and you flung him off. That brought the cuss to terms mighty quick. There ain’t nothing like a little muscle to clear up trouble. I thought for a minute he was a-going to fight. Lord! I’d ’a liked to seen a fight between you two. It would be----” “Rogers!” Jack broke in on the old man’s monologue; a solution of the problem that was troubling him had suddenly dawned. “I’m glad to see you. Can you do something for me?” “I reckon so. I told you I could guide you----” “All right. I’ll engage you.” Jack drew out his purse. “Here’s two months’ pay in advance. Hunt up Colonel Johnson and tell him all you’ve heard--about my cousin, Miss Estelle Telfair, and about this British officer and all. Ask him to find her and care for her till I get back from Fort Wayne. Put yourself under his orders and do just as he says. I’ll be back in about a week.” The old hunter nodded. “I’ll do it,” he declared. “Money talks in Ohio same as elsewhere. And it talks a heap eloquenter than tongues----” From the seat of the wagon Williams leaned forward. “Say, old man,” he called. “I want to speak to you before you go. I can’t----” “Ain’t got time now. See you later.” Deliberately Rogers turned his back and trotted away. Clearly he had not forgotten the slight that Williams had put upon him the day before. Jack turned to Williams. “Go ahead,” he ordered. Alagwa started. Absorbed in the conversation, she had forgotten her own situation and the pressing need that she should get word of her movements to Tecumseh. Now abruptly she remembered. She was leaving Girty’s Town without having been seen by any one. Clearly Jack had forgotten her. Not once in his talk with Blue Jacket had he mentioned her part in the tragedy of the morning. He had asked no one to identify her. In another moment she would be gone. Her trail would be broken and the runners from Tecumseh would be unable to pick it up. Anxiously, she rolled back from the peep hole and half raised herself, hesitating whether to call out. Then she stopped with a gasp. At the rear of the wagon, looking in, stood an Indian. How long he had been there she did not know; but as her eyes met his he made a swift sign for silence. “Tecumseh send. I follow,” he muttered, in the Shawnee tongue. “Call like a whip-poor-will when you want.” Another moment and he was gone. Alagwa dropped back on her couch and closed her eyes and lay still. As the wagon rolled away her heart was beating high. The runners had found her. The broken trail was whole again. CHAPTER VIII THE sun was visibly declining toward the west when the wagon, driven by Williams and followed by Jack Telfair and Cato, rumbled out of Girty’s Town and took the road down the St. Marys river.