"Up; up, boys!" he cried. "Those three men are Tories or English, and they are coming back with the savages. The rings of smoke made the signal to their friends. But we'll beat them at their own trick."
All were on their feet in an instant—in fact, only Jim Hart and Paul had fallen asleep—and they ran silently into the forest in a direction opposite to that which the three had chosen. But they did not go far. At Henry's whispered signal, they sank down among some dense bushes where they could lie hidden, and yet see all that passed at the Council House. The water from the bushes that they had moved dropped upon them, but they did not notice it. Nor did they care either that the spire of smoke still rose through the roof of the old Council House. Five pairs of uncommonly keen eyes were watching the forest to see their enemies come forth.
"I saw the fellow make the big smoke," said Shif'less Sol, "but I knowed that you saw, too. So I jest waited till you give the word, Henry."
"I wanted them to go through to the end with it," replied Henry. "If we had stopped the man when he was bringing in the leaves he might have made some sort of excuse, and we should have had no proof at all against them."
"Them's false names they gave o' course."
"Of course. It is likely that the man who called himself Holdsworth is somebody of importance. His manner indicated it. How ugly that harelipped fellow was!"
"How long do you think it will be before they come back?" asked Shif'less Sol.
"Not long. The Indian force could not have been more than a mile or so away, or they would not have relied on smoke signals in the night. It will be only a short wait, Sol, until we see something interesting. Now I wish I knew that harelipped man!"
Henry and his comrades could have slipped away easily in the darkness, but they had no mind to do so. Theirs was a journey of discovery, and, since here was an opportunity to do what they wished, they would not avoid it, no matter how great the risk. So they waited patiently. The forest still dripped water, but they had seldom seen the skies a brighter blue at night. The spire of smoke showed against it sharp and clear, as if it had been day. In the brilliant moonlight the ruined village assumed another ghostly phase. All the rugged outlines of half-fallen tepees were silvered and softened. Henry, with that extraordinary sensitiveness of his to nature and the wilderness, felt again the mysticism and unreality of this place, once inhabited by man and now given back to the forest. In another season or two the last remnant of bark would disappear, the footpaths would be grown up with bushes, and the wild animals would roam there unafraid.
All these thoughts passed like a succession of mental flashes through the mind of the forest dreamer—and a dreamer he was, a poet of the woods—as he waited there for what might be, and what probably would be, a tragedy. But as these visions flitted past there was no relaxation of his vigilance. It was he who first heard the slight swishing sound of the bushes on the far side of the Council House; it was he who first heard the light tread of an approaching moccasin, and it was he who first saw the ugly harelipped face of a white man appear at the forest edge. Then all saw, and slow, cold anger rose in five breasts at the treacherous trick.