"One of them was outside the cave. He may have come through the forest and have met other white men."
"It might be so, but I'm afraid it isn't. They have broken the siege in some manner and have eluded Wyatt. I had hoped that if he could not kill or capture them he would at least hold them there. It is not well for us to have them hanging upon our army and ambushing the warriors."
"You speak wisely, Blackstaffe. The one they call Ware is only a youth, but he is full of wisdom and bravery. There was an affair of the belt bearers, in which he tricked even Yellow Panther and myself. If we could capture him and make him become one of us, a red warrior to fight the white people to whom he once belonged, he would add much to our strength in war."
Blackstaffe shook his head most emphatically.
"Don't think of that again, great chief," he said. "It is a waste of time. He would endure the most terrible of all our tortures first. Think instead of his scalp hanging in your wigwam."
The eyes of Red Eagle glistened.
"It would be a great triumph," he said, "but our young men have chased him many times, and always he is gone like the deer. We have set the trap for him often, but when it falls he is away. None shoots so quickly or so true as he, and if one of our young men meets him alone in the forest it is the Shawnee over whom the birds sing the death song."
"It's not his scalp that we want merely for the scalp's sake. You are a brave and great chief, O Red Eagle, and you know that Ware and his comrades are scouts, spies and messengers. It's not so much the warriors whom we lose at their hands, but they're the eyes of the woods. They always tell the settlements of our coming, and bring the white forces together. We must trap them on this march, if we have to spread out a belt of a hundred warriors to do it."
"I hope the net won't have any holes in it. We overtake the great band tomorrow, and then you'll have all the warriors you need. They can be spread out on the flank as we march. Hark, Red Eagle, what was that?"
Henry himself in his covert started a little, as the long whine of a wolf came from a point far behind them. One of the warriors on the other side of the fire returned the cry, so piercing and ferocious in its note that Henry started again. But as the chief, the renegade and all the warriors rose to their feet, he withdrew somewhat further into the thicket, yet remaining where he could see all that might pass.