"Ye can travel as fast as him, and ye can shoot him if he tries his tricks."
"But it will separate you and me."
"I'll follow as fast as I can go; I can't run like ye, but I'm sure that if there's any fighting to be done I'll be on hand in time to give some help."
"Go 'mong trees—hide quick—Shawanoe coming."
It was Arqu-wao who uttered these words, with every evidence of agitation. He made quick gestures, and was so urgent that he compelled instant obedience.
Wharton and Larry sprang out of the path, and each darting behind the trunk of a large tree, peered cautiously out to learn the cause of the sudden alarm of their guide.
They saw nothing, but his actions were singular. Instead of remaining where he was, he took a number of short, quick steps, which carried him several rods farther toward the block-house. Then he halted as suddenly as a soldier in obedience to the command of his officer.
"Sh! look out! there they are!" whispered Wharton to his friend, but a few paces away.
Several flickering objects, seen through the trees, revealed themselves to be three Shawanoes in their war paint, striding along the trail as though they were runners from the block-house to the settlement. In fact their gait was a loping trot until they slowed down on seeing Arqu-wao.
There could be no mistaking them for runners, for not only did their war paint forbid this, but with feelings that can be imagined the youth recognized the leader as Blazing Arrow, the savage who hated the white people with an intensity beyond imagination.