upon the bed of pine-tufts, poised upon the brink of the death pit with
only my dear lad to hold and draw me back.

"A week?" I queried, when he had named the interval. "And you have been
here all the time?"

"I've never left you, save to forage for the pot," he admitted. "I dared
not leave you, Jack."

"But where are we?" I would ask.

"In a den on the river's edge, a mile or more above your sacked cabin.
'Tis some dodge-hole hollowed out by the Catawbas long ago and shared
since by them and the bears, judging from the stinking reek of it.
Uncanoola steered me hither the night of the raid."

"Then the chief came off safely?" I said, falling into a dumb and
impotent rage that the saying of two words should scant me so of
strength to say a third.

"Right as a trivet--scalps and all," laughed Jennifer. "He'll be the
envy of every warrior in the tribe when he vaunts himself at the
Catawbas' council fire."

I let it rest a while at that, casting about for words to shape a
hungrier question.

"Have you no news?" I asked, at length.

"Little or none," he answered shortly.