He stooped down and chafed the wounded youth's wrists and temples, while the rain with its vivifying touch still drove upon his face. Paul stirred and his pulse grew stronger. He opened his eyes catching one vague glimpse of the anxious face above him, but he was so feeble that the lids closed down again. But Henry was cheered. Paul was not only alive, he was growing stronger, and, bending down, he lifted him in his powerful arms. Then he strode away in the darkness, intending to pass in a curve around the hostile army. Despite Paul's weight he was able also to keep his rifle ready, because none knew better than he that all the chances favored his meeting with one warrior or more before the curve was made. But he was instinct with strength both mental and physical, he was the true type of the borderer, the men who faced with sturdy heart the vast dangers of the wilderness, the known and the unknown. At that moment he was at his highest pitch of courage and skill, alone in the darkness and storm, surrounded by the danger of death and worse, yet ready to risk everything for the sake of the boy with whom he had played. He heard nothing but the patter of the distant firing, and all around him was the gloom, of a night, dark to intensity. The rain poured steadily out of a sky that did not contain a single star. Paul stirred occasionally on his shoulder, as he advanced, swiftly, picking his way through the forest and the undergrowth. A half mile forward and his ears caught a light footstep. In an instant he sank down with his burden, and as he did so he caught sight of an Indian warrior, not twenty feet away. The Shawnee saw him at the same time, and he, too, dropped down in the undergrowth. Henry did not then feel the lust of blood. He would have been willing to pass on, and leave the Shawnee to himself; but he knew that the Shawnee would not leave him. He laid Paul upon his back, in order that the rain might beat upon his face, and then crouched beside him, absolutely motionless, but missing nothing that the keenest eye or ear might detect. It was a contest of patience, and the white youth brought to bear upon it both the red man's training and his own. A half hour passed, and within that small area there was no sound but the beat of the rain on the leaves and the sticky earth. Perhaps the warrior thought he had been deceived; it was merely an illusion of the night that he thought he saw; or if he had seen anyone the man was now gone, creeping away through the undergrowth. He stirred among his own bushes, raised up a little to see, and gave his enemy a passing glimpse of his face. But it was enough; a rifle bullet struck him between the eyes and the wilderness fighter lay dead in the forest.