"When I run across your trail afore sundown, I wuz shore it belonged to one o' them renegades I heard called Blackstaffe, and I made up my mind to git him."
"You come mighty near getting the fellow who stood in his place," said Henry. "I thought I had against me about the best warrior that was ever in these woods."
The moonlight disclosed the broad grin and shining teeth of the shiftless one.
"I reckon I ain't been sleepin' on no downy couch myself fur the last two hours," he said. "Henry, what's all this about the getherin' at the mouth o' the Lickin'?"
"All the tribes will be there—Wyandots, Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares, Ottawas, and Illinois. I've heard them in council. They mean to begin a new and greater war to drive the whites from their hunting ground. The fleet will be attacked in great force again, and all the settlements will have to fight."
"Then," said Shif'less Sol, "we'd better pick up the other fellers, Tom an' Saplin' an' Paul, ez soon ez we kin, an' git ahead o' the Indians."
"Where are the others?" asked Henry.
"Off that way lookin' fur you," replied Sol, waving his hand toward the southeast. "We scattered so ez to cover ez much ground as we could."
"We must hunt them and use our signal," said Henry, "two hoots of the owl from the first, three from the others, and then the same over again from both. It's a mighty good thing we arranged that long ago, or you and I, Sol, might be shooting at each other yet."
"That's so, an' we're likely to need them bullets fur a better use," rejoined the shiftless one. "Pow'ful good gun you've got thar, Henry. Did the Injuns make you a present o' that before you ran away?"