is too light for boots."

"Which means that he's a rover like ourselves," said Willet. "Now he's
stopped. There isn't a sound. The man, whoever he is, has taken alarm,
or at least he's decided that it's best for him to be more
watchful. Perhaps he's caught a whiff from the ashes of our fire. He's
white or he wouldn't be here alone, and he's used to the forest, or he
wouldn't have suspected a presence from so little."

"The Great Bear thinks clearly," said Tayoga. "It is surely a white
man and some great scout or hunter. He moved a little now to the
right, because I heard his buckskin brush lightly against a bush. I
think Great Bear is right about the fire. The wind has brought the
ashes from it to his nostrils, and he will lie in the bush long before
moving."

"Which doesn't suit our plans at all," said Willet. "There's a
chance, just a chance, that I may know who he is. White men of the
kind to go scouting through the wilderness are not so plenty on the
border that one has to make many guesses. You lads move away a little
so you won't be in line if a shot comes, and I'll give a signal."

Robert and Tayoga crept to other points in the brush, and the hunter
uttered a whistle, low but very clear and musical. In a moment or two,
a like answer came from a place about a hundred yards away, and Willet
rising, advanced without hesitation. Robert and Tayoga followed
promptly, and a tall figure, emerging from the darkness, came forward
to meet them.

The stranger was a man of middle years, and of a singularly wild