is he underrating us?"

"He knows all right, an' is matchin' his cunnin' against our'n."

"Tell me what you and Wetzel learned."

The borderman proceeded to relate the events that had occurred during
a recent tramp in the forest with Wetzel. While returning from a hunt
in a swamp several miles over the ridge, back of Fort Henry, they ran
across the trail of three Indians. They followed this until darkness
set in, when both laid down to rest and wait for the early dawn, that
time most propitious for taking the savage by surprise. On resuming
the trail they found that other Indians had joined the party they were
tracking. To the bordermen this was significant of some unusual
activity directed toward the settlement. Unable to learn anything
definite from the moccasin traces, they hurried up on the trail to
find that the Indians had halted.

Wetzel and Jonathan saw from their covert that the savages had a woman
prisoner. A singular feature about it all was that the Indians
remained in the same place all day, did not light a camp-fire, and
kept a sharp lookout. The bordermen crept up as close as safe, and
remained on watch during the day and night.

Early next morning, when the air was fading from black to gray, the
silence was broken by the snapping of twigs and a tremor of the
ground. The bordermen believed another company of Indians was
approaching; but they soon saw it was a single white man leading a
number of horses. He departed before daybreak. Wetzel and Jonathan
could not get a clear view of him owing to the dim light; but they