A gentle wind brought a low groan to the ears of every man among them.
The blood of the warriors chilled quickly in their veins. All their superstitions, all the inherited beliefs of many generations, all the lore of the old squaws, told about innumerable camp fires, came crashing back upon them as those two ghostly white shapes, hovering there in the darkness, continued to transfix them with an accusing gaze. There was an involuntary shudder, a sudden clustering together of the whole party, and then, with a simultaneous cry of horror, they broke and fled in a wild pellmell far out upon the icy surface of the lake, and then on, bearing with them in the rout both Yellow Panther and Braxton Wyatt. Nor did they dare to look back, because they knew that the terrible eyes of the long departed, upon whose territory they had intended to commit sacrilege, were boring into their backs. The island was haunted, and would remain so for many a year, despite all that Braxton Wyatt and Yellow Panther had said.
About the time the Miamis reached the mainland, and darted among the trees in the race for their own village, Paul Cotter and Long Jim Hart leaped lightly from the low bough of the oak, took off the enfolding robes of white tanned deerskin, with holes for the eyes.
"Jehoshaphat!" said Long Jim, as he threw the robes on the ground, "I'm glad that's over. Bein' a ghost jest about a minute is enough fur me. I wuz scared to death lest I didn't groan good an' horrible."
"But you never did a better job in your life, Jim," said Henry, as he came from behind a tree. "You and Paul were the finest ghosts I ever saw, and no Indian will dare to set foot on this island in the next hundred years."
"It shorely was a sight to see them braves run," said Shif'less Sol. "Thar's many a tired man in that lot now. I think some o' 'em didn't hit the ice an' snow more'n twice between here an' the lan'."
"Paul's made the islan' ez safe fur us ez a stone fort ez long ez we want to stay," said Tom Ross.
"It was a great plan, well done," said Henry.
Paul's face shone with the most intense delight. His imagination, leaping forward to meet a crisis, had served them all greatly, and he was happy. He had fought not with rifle and knife, but with the weapon of the intellect.
"Now that this job is over, an' we're the big winners," said Shif'less Sol, "I'm goin' to do what a tired man ought to do: go to sleep, wrapped up in buffalo robes, an' sleep about forty hours."