At a point still some distance ahead, but plainly in sight, two small islands rose out of the water.
“Hist! What’s that?” whispered Wetzel, slipping his hand in Jonathan’s arm.
A hundred yards beyond lay a long, dark figure stretched at full length under one of the trees close to the bank.
“Looks like a man,” said Jonathan.
“You’ve hit the mark. Take a good peep roun’ now, Jack, fer we’re comin’ somewhere near the trail we want.”
Minutes passed while the patient bordermen searched the forest with their eyes, seeking out every tree within rifle range, or surveyed the level glades, scrutinized the hollows, and bent piercing eyes upon the patches of ferns.
“If there’s a redskin around he ain’t big enough to hold a gun,” said Wetzel, moving forward again, yet still with that same stealthy step and keen caution.
Finally they were gazing down upon the object which had attracted Wetzel’s attention.
“Will Sheppard!” cried Jonathan. “Is he dead? What’s this mean?”
Wetzel leaned over the prostrate lad, and then quickly turned to his companion.
“Get some water. Take his cap. No, he ain’t even hurt bad, unless he’s got some wound as don’t show.”
Jonathan returned with the water, and Wetzel bathed the bloody face. When the gash on Will’s forehead was clean, it told the bordermen much.
“Not an hour old, that blow,” muttered Wetzel.
“He’s comin’ to,” said Jonathan as Will stirred uneasily and moaned. Presently the lad opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. He looked bewildered for a moment, and felt of his head while gazing vaguely at the bordermen. Suddenly he cried:
“I remember! We were captured, brought here, and I was struck down by that villain Case.”
“We? Who was with you?” asked Jonathan slowly.
“Helen. We came after flowers and leaves. While in full sight of the fort I saw an Indian. We hurried back,” he cried, and proceeded with broken, panting voice to tell his story.
Jonathan Zane leaped to his feet with face deathly white and eyes blue-black, like burning stars.
“Jack, study the trail while I get the lad acrost the river, an’ steered fer home,” said Wetzel, and then he asked Will if he could swim.
“Yes; but you will find a canoe there in those willows.”
“Come, lad, we’ve no time to spare,” added Wetzel, sliding down the bank and entering the willows. He came out almost immediately with the canoe which he launched.
Will turned that he might make a parting appeal to Jonathan to save Helen; but could not speak. The expression on the borderman’s face frightened him.
Motionless and erect Jonathan stood, his arms folded and his white, stern face distorted with the agony of remorse, fear, and anguish, which, even as Will gazed, froze into an awful, deadly look of fateful purpose.
Wetzel pushed the canoe off, and paddled with powerful strokes; he left Will on the opposite bank, and returned as swiftly as he could propel the light craft.
The bordermen met each other’s glance, and had little need of words. Wetzel’s great shoulders began to sag slightly, and his head lowered as his eyes sought the grass; a dark and gloomy shade overcast his features. Thus he passed from borderman to Deathwind. The sough of the wind overhead among the almost naked branches might well have warned Indians and renegades that Deathwind was on the trail!
“Brandt’s had a hand in this, an’ the Englishman’s a fool!” said Wetzel.
“An hour ahead; can we come up with them before they join Brandt an’ Legget?”
“We can try, but like as not we’ll fail. Legget’s gang is thirteen strong by now. I said it! Somethin’ told me—a hard trail, a long trail, an’ our last trail.”
“It’s over thirty miles to Legget’s camp. We know the woods, an’ every stream, an’ every cover,” hissed Jonathan Zane.
With no further words Wetzel took the trail on the run, and so plain was it to his keen eyes that he did not relax his steady lope except to stop and listen at regular intervals. Jonathan followed with easy swing. Through forest and meadow, over hill and valley, they ran, fleet and tireless. Once, with unerring instinct, they abruptly left the broad trail and cut far across a wide and rugged ridge to come again upon the tracks of the marching band. Then, in open country they reduced their speed to a walk. Ahead, in a narrow valley, rose a thicket of willows, yellow in the sunlight, and impenetrable to human vision. Like huge snakes the bordermen crept into this copse, over the sand, under the low branches, hard on the trail. Finally, in a light, open space, where the sun shone through a network of yellow branches and foliage, Wetzel’s hand was laid upon Jonathan’s shoulder.
“Listen! Hear that!” he whispered.
Jonathan heard the flapping of wings, and a low, hissing sound, not unlike that made by a goose.
“Buzzards!” he said, with a dark, grim smile. “Mebbe Brandt has begun our work. Come.”
Out into the open they crawled to put to flight a flock of huge black birds with grisly, naked necks, hooked beaks, and long, yellow claws. Upon the green grass lay three half-naked men, ghastly, bloody, in terribly limp and lifeless positions.
“Metzar’s man Smith, Jenks, the outlaw, and Mordaunt!”
Jonathan Zane gazed darkly into the steely, sightless eyes of the traitor. Death’s awful calm had set the expression; but the man’s whole life was there, its better part sadly shining forth among the cruel shadows.
His body was mutilated in a frightful manner. Cuts, stabs, and slashes told the tale of a long encounter, brought to an end by one clean stroke.
“Come here, Lew. You’ve seen men chopped up; but look at this dead Englishman,” called Zane.
Mordaunt lay weltering in a crimson tide. Strangely though, his face was uninjured. A black bruise showed under his fair hair. The ghost of a smile seemed to hover around his set lips, yet almost intangible though it was, it showed that at last he had died a man. His left shoulder, side and arm showed where the brunt of Brandt’s attack had fallen.
“How’d he ever fight so?” mused Jonathan.
“You never can tell,” replied Wetzel. “Mebbe he killed this other fellar, too; but I reckon not. Come, we must go slow now, fer Legget is near at hand.”
Jonathan brought huge, flat stones from the brook, and laid them over Mordaunt; then, cautiously he left the glade on Wetzel’s trail.
Five hundred yards farther on Wetzel had ceased following the outlaw’s tracks to cross the creek and climb a ridge. He was beginning his favorite trick of making a wide detour. Jonathan hurried forward, feeling he was safe from observation. Soon he distinguished the tall, brown figure of his comrade gliding ahead from tree to tree, from bush to bush.
“See them maples an’ chestnuts down thar,” said Wetzel when Jonathan had come up, pointing through an opening in the foliage. “They’ve stopped fer some reason.”
On through the forest the bordermen glided. They kept near the summit of the ridge, under the best cover they could find, and passed swiftly over this half-circle. When beginning once more to draw toward the open grove in the valley, they saw a long, irregular cliff, densely wooded. They swerved a little, and made for this excellent covert.
They crawled the last hundred yards and never shook a fern, moved a leaf, or broke a twig. Having reached the brink of the low precipice, they saw the grassy meadow below, the straggling trees, the brook, the group of Indians crowding round the white men.
“See that point of rock thar? It’s better cover,”