An arrow with a deeply feathered shaft had been planted deep in an oak tree. Evidently it had been fired from a bow by some one standing on the plain, and it was equally evident that a powerful hand had drawn the string. It stood out straight and stark as if it would stay there forever. Bill Breakstone rode up to it and examined it critically.
"It's a Comanche arrow, Phil," he said, "and, between you and me, I think it means something:
"An arrow I see
Stuck in a tree,
But what it does mean
Has not yet been seen--
"Especially when it's coupled with the fact that you saw Black Panther's face in the thicket. I may have an imaginative mind, Sir Philip of the Forest, soon to be Sir Philip of the Plain, but this arrow I take to be our first warning. It tells us to turn back, and it may have been fired by Black Panther himself, late Knight of the Levee and of Strong Drink."
"Will we turn back?" asked Phil somewhat anxiously.
Bill Breakstone laughed scornfully.
"Do you think a crowd like ours would turn back for a sign?" he asked. "Why, Phil, that arrow, if it is meant as a threat, is the very thing to draw them on. It would make them anxious to go ahead and meet those who say they must stop. If they were not that kind of men, they wouldn't be here."
"I suppose so," said Phil. "I, for one, would not want to turn back."
He rode up to the tree, took the arrow by the shaft, and pulled with all his might. He was a strong youth, but he could not loosen it. Unless broken off, it was to stay there, a sign that a Comanche warning had been given.
"I knew you couldn't move it," said Bill Breakstone. "The Indians have short bows, and you wouldn't think they could get so much power with them, but they do. It's no uncommon thing for a buck at close range to send an arrow clear through a big bull buffalo, and it takes powerful speed to do that."