The Forest Runners | Page 3

now, while he might not find Henry, Henry would
certainly find him. Any wilderness trail was an open road to his
comrade.
He hunted a soft place under one of the trees, and, despising the dew,
stretched himself between two giant roots, his rifle by his side. He was
tired and hungry, and he lay for a while staring at the blank
undergrowth, but by and by all his troubles and doubts floated away.
The note of the wind was soothing, and the huge roots sheltered him.
His eyelids drooped, a singular feeling of peace and ease crept over him,
and he was asleep.
It was yet the intense darkness of early night, and the outline of his
figure was lost between the giant roots, but after a while a silver moon
brought a gray tint to the skies, and the black bank over the forest
began to thin and lighten. Then two figures, hideous in paint, crept
from the undergrowth, and stared at the sleeping boy with pitiless eyes.
Paul slept on, and mercifully knew nothing of his danger; yet it would
have been hard to find in the world two pairs of eyes that contained
more savagery than those now gazing upon him. Their owners crept
nearer, looking with fierce joy through the darkness at the sleeping boy
who was so certainly their prey. Their code contained nothing that
taught them to spare a foe, and this youth. In the van of the white
invasion, was the worst of foes.
The boy still slept, and his slumber was deep, sweet, and dreamless. No
warning came to him while the savage eyes, bright with cruel fire, crept
closer and closer, and the merciful darkness, coming again, tried to
close down and hide the approaching tragedy of the forest.

Paul returned with a jerk from his peaceful heaven. Hands and feet
were seized suddenly and pinned to the earth so tightly that he could
not move, and he gazed up at two hideous, painted faces, very near to
his own, and full of menace. The boy's heart turned for a moment to
water. He saw at once, through his vivid and powerful imagination, all
the terrors of his position, and in the same instant he leaped forward
also to the future, and to the agony it had in store for him. But in a
moment his courage came back, the strong will once more took
command of the body and the spirit, and he looked up with stoical eyes
at his captors. He knew that resistance now would be in vain, and,
relaxing his muscles, he saved his strength.
The warriors laughed a little, a soundless laugh that was full of menace,
and bound him securely with strips of buckskin cut from his own
garments. Then they stood up, and Paul, too, rose to a sitting position,
gazing intently at his captors. They were powerful men, apparently
warriors of middle age, and Paul knew enough of costume and paint to
tell that they were of the Shawnee nation, bitterly hostile to him and his
kind.
His terrors came back upon him in full sweep. He loved life, and,
scholar though he was, he loved his life in the young wilderness of
Kentucky, where he was at the beginnings of things. Every detail of
what they would do to him, every incident of the torture was already
photographed upon his sensitive mind, but again the brave lad called up
all his courage, and again he triumphed, keeping his body still and his
face without expression. He merely looked up at them, as if placidly
waiting their will.
The two warriors talked together a little, and then, seeming to change
their minds, they unbound the boy's feet. One touched him on the
shoulder, and, pointing to the north, started in that direction. Paul
understood, and, rising to his feet, followed. The second warrior came
close behind, and Paul was as securely a prisoner as if he were in the
midst of a band of a hundred. Once or twice he looked around at the
silent woods and thought of running, but it would have been the wildest
folly. His hands tied, he could have been quickly overtaken, or, if not

that, a bullet. He sternly put down the temptation, and plodded steadily
on between the warriors, the broad, brown back of the one in front of
him always leading the way.
It seemed to him that they sought the densest part of the undergrowth,
where the night shadows lay thickest, and he was wise enough to know
that they did it to hide their trail from possible pursuit. Then he thought
of Henry, his comrade, the prince of trailers! He might come! He would
come! Paul's blood leaped at the thought, and his head