Chapter XII. The Shades of Death - Page 2

white -- but not for himself.

"Yes," said Shif'less Sol. He understood the look. We are pursued. Them wolves howlin' are the Iroquois. What do you reckon we're goin' to do, Henry?"

"Fight!" replied the youth, with fierce energy. "Beat 'em off!"

"How?"

Henry circled the little oasis with the eye of a general, and his plan came.

"You'll stand here, where the earth gives a footing," he said, "you, Solomon Hyde, as brave a man as I ever saw, and with you will be Paul Cotter, Tom Ross, Jim Hart, and Henry Ware, old friends of yours. Carpenter will at once lead the women and children on ahead, and perhaps they will not hear the battle that is going to be fought here."

A smile of approval, slow, but deep and comprehensive, stole over the face of Solomon Hyde, surnamed, wholly without fitness, the shiftless one. "It seems to me," he said, "that I've heard o' them four fellers you're talkin' about, an' ef I wuz to hunt all over this planet an' them other planets that Paul tells of, I couldn't find four other fellers that I'd ez soon have with me."

"We've got to stand here to the death," said Henry.

"You're shorely right," said Shif'less Sol.

The hands of the two comrades met in a grip of steel.

The other three were called and were told of the plan, which met with their full approval. Then the news was carried to Carpenter, who quickly agreed that their course was the wisest. He urged all the fugitives to their feet, telling them that they must reach another dry place before night, but they were past asking questions now, and, heavy and apathetic, they passed on into the swamp.

Paul watched the last of them disappear among the black bushes and weeds, and turned back to his friends on the oasis. The five lay down behind a big fallen pine, and gave their weapons a last look. They had never been armed better. Their rifles were good, and the fine double-barreled pistols, formidable weapons, would be a great aid, especially at close quarters.

"I take it," said Tom Ross, "that the Iroquois can't get through at all unless they come along this way, an' it's the same ez ef we wuz settin' on solid earth, poppin' em over, while they come sloshin' up to us."

"That's exactly it," said Henry. "We've a natural defense which we can hold against much greater numbers, and the longer we hold 'em off, the nearer our people will be to Fort Penn."

"I never felt more like fightin' in my life," said Tom Ross.

It was a grim utterance, true of them all, although not one among them was bloodthirsty.

"Can any of you hear anything?" asked Henry. "Nothin'," replied Shif'less Sol, after a little wait, "nothin' from the women goin', an'