"They're riding now," replied Henry. "They're not as used as the Indians to forest marches, and they've all been compelled to take to the wagons for a while. But they won't stay in 'em long."
"Why not?"
"Because Alloway won't want the warriors to look down on him or his men, and the Indians are impressed by physical strength and tenacity. As soon as they're fairly rested he'll get out and make all the others get out too."
In a half-hour he called their particular attention to a point in the great trail.
"All of them got out of the wagons here," he said. "Look where the boot heels cut into the ground. What's this? A warrior coming out of the forest has joined them here. Perhaps he was a man sent by Braxton Wyatt or Blackstaffe to tell how they were getting along in their siege of us, and here is another trail, where a dozen warriors split from the band."
"A huntin' party, o' course," said the shif'less one as he looked at it. "They send 'em off on ev'ry side, ev'ry day, an' we've got to watch mighty close, lest some o' them light on us."
"Still," said Henry, "when they got their game they wouldn't come straight back to a trail already old. They'd go on ahead to catch up. It's lucky that we've got plenty of venison and don't have to do any hunting of our own. Jim, you certainly did noble work as a cook back there."
"Which reminds me," said Long Jim, "that I'll chaw a strip uv venison now."
"Jim wuz always a glutton," said the shiftless one, "but that won't keep me from j'inin' him in his pleasant pursuit."
Daylight found them in dense canebrake with the road that the army had been forced to cut for the cannon leading on straight and true.