And yet Humphrey, who knew the forest so well--its mysterious,
interminable depths, its trackless, boundless extent, rolling over
hill and valley in endless billows--he knew well how silently, how
suddenly an ambushed foe might approach, spring out from the thick,
tangled shelter to do some murderous deed, and in the maze of giant
timber be at once swallowed up beyond all danger of pursuit.

In the open plains the Indian raids were terrible enough, but the
horrors of uncertainty and ignorance which enveloped the settlers
in the forests might well cause the stoutest heart to quail when
once it became known that the Indians had become their enemies, and
that there was another enemy stirring up the strife, and bribing
the fierce and greedy savages to carry desolation and death into
the settlements of the English colonists.

Whispers--rumours--had just begun to penetrate into these leafy
solitudes; but communication with the outside world was so rare
that the Angell family, who had long been self-supporting, and able
to live without the products of the mother colony away to the east,
had scarcely realized the change that was creeping over the
country. The old man had never seen anything of Indian warfare, and
his sons had had little more experience. They had been peaceful
denizens of the woods, and bore arms for purposes of the chase
rather than for self-preservation from human foes, as did the bulk
of those dwellers in the woods that fringed the western border of
the English-speaking colony.

"We have no enemies; why should we fear?" asked Charles, the elder
brother, a man of placable temperament, a fine worker with the axe
or plough, a man of indomitable industry, endurance, and patience,