"We dropped them," said Ned, with some excitement.
"Yes, but they dropped themselves; they're inside the stockade."
"What harm can two of them do, if they are there?" asked Colonel Preston, quite hopeful that they had slain the Indians.
"There are a half dozen of the varmints at least inside," was the disquieting statement of Stinger.
"We ought to be able to see them," observed Colonel Preston, looking searchingly at the spot where the two were discovered.
"When they stand still, you can't see 'em; but when they stir around, you can just make 'em out."
The reason why the Wyandots had selected this side of the stockade, was now apparent. The position of the moon in the heavens was such that the pickets threw a wall of shadow several feet within the square. When the warriors dropped to the ground, they were in such gloom that it was almost impossible to see them, except when they moved away from the fence.
All this being true, it still was not easy to divine their purpose in climbing the pickets. So long as they remained within the square, they were in range of the Kentuckians' rifles as much as though on the clearing in front.
CHAPTER XIII.
SHADOWY VISITORS.
When the eye gazes steadily at the Pleiades, in the midnight splendor of the starlit sky, one of the blazing orbs shrinks modestly from view and only six remain to be admired by the wondering gazer below: it is the quick, casual glance that catches the brilliant sister unawares, before she can hide her face.