“I’m mighty glad you’re home,” was John’s greeting as Ree and Mr. Hatch dismounted before the door. “There has been somebody prowling around the woods across the clearing, and it worried me. Honest truth, I believe it was that man Duff, though he looked like an Indian.”

“It was an Indian, all right,” Ree confidently answered, “our old friend, the vanisher. We, also, saw him, or rather, heard him, and I guess he was more scared than we were, wasn’t he, Mr. Hatch?”
198

“Verily, I was much frightened myself,” the Quaker answered, and then Ree told all about the experience beside the ravine.

John could not be certain that the person he had seen was not the lone Indian. It was during the afternoon, he said, that he noticed a movement among the bushes on the hillside across the clearing, and watching more closely, had made certain that some one was spying on him and the cabin.

“It made me so nervous that I got to thinking maybe some one was slipping up behind me, or maybe some one would get into the shanty while my back was turned, and all of a sudden I found myself as scared as I could be, and I jumped into the house and shut the door, almost sure that I was going to be killed the very next second. Ring clawed at the door a full minute before I could gather up my courage, and laughing because I felt myself so frightened, opened the door for him to come in.”
199

“It was your imagination that got away with you,” said Ree, smiling. “If a chap just imagines that some one is watching him, waiting to shoot or grab him, he can scare himself worse than he would be if he really saw some one just ready to jump onto him.”

The conversation turned to other subjects then, the boys having agreed that as the wind and snow would by this time have covered up the tracks the prowler made, it would be of no use to try to find them and so determine who the fellow was. It was already dark, moreover, and so stormy a night that neither boy cared to leave the bright fireplace unless it were necessary.

Supper was over and Ree and John and Mr. Hatch, snug and comfortable, were discussing the situation of the Delawares when to their astonishment there came a knocking at the door. In all the time since the cabin was built no visitor had announced his presence in that way.

“Great guns! Who can it be?” murmured John, but Ree hastily arose to answer the call.
200

“Come in, come in,” came the latter’s voice cheerily, as the figure of a man crouching close to the wall, as if to escape the raw, cold wind, was revealed by the firelight when the door was opened.

Softly the person glided into the room and close to the fire, spreading out his hands to the welcome heat, but turning his face away as if the bright glare hurt his eyes. His dress and long black hair and tawny skin indicated that he was an Indian, probably of the Mohawk tribe—a Mingo, at least—but neither of the boys remembered having seen him before.

“It is a cold night,” said John, hospitably moving back from the fire to give the visitor more room.

“Ugh!”

The stranger uttered no other word, but, Indian fashion, shrugged his shoulders as if to answer that there was no doubt as to the truth of the remark.

“Have you traveled far?” John asked.

“Heap,” the fellow answered, glancing around to note where Ree was placing the rifle he had put in the boy’s hands as a sign of friendship, upon entering.
201

“Get our friend some meat, John,” said Ree, standing the rifle in a corner. “Sit down and warm yourself,” he next said, addressing the mysterious caller, pushing a stool toward him.

The fellow seated himself, but still turned his face away, even while eating the cold venison which John placed on another stool beside him. Again John tried to get him to talk, but he answered only in the briefest way, and said nothing except when directly spoken to. Of his own accord a little later, however, he did speak, saying: “Me good Injun; me sleep here,” pointing to the floor near the fire.

“Yes, you may sleep there,” said Ree, but behind the visitor’s back he gave John a look which said, “We must watch this chap,” and his chum winked and nodded.

Theodore Hatch seemed quite undisturbed by the presence of the unexpected guest, but continued to talk to the boys of his plans for teaching and caring for the Indians at Captain Pipe’s town. Then he drifted from that subject to wondering whether the missing part of the paper describing the hiding place of his aunt’s fortune would ever fall into his hands.
202

“Of one thing we must make sure,” he said, “the letter must never come into the possession of the scoundrels who robbed me. I shall never use—verily if I am to work as a missionary among these poor Indians,—I shall never need, the money my poor mother’s sister secreted for my unfortunate brother and myself; yet shall it remain hidden rather than that it should be found and gambled away and spent for rum by the wicked men who have tried to obtain it.”

“Heap tired—Injun heap tired,” said the strange creature still toasting his hands close to the fire, though it was now so warm that the others had moved back from the blaze, and John was even lying on the bed of skins and blankets in the farthest corner.

“Yes, strange friend, lie down and rest thyself,” answered the Quaker complacently, taking a large bearskin from his own bed, and handing it to the fellow.
203

Without a word the latter wrapped the robe about his head and shoulders and threw himself in a corner—the very corner in which Ree had put his rifle.

“I, too, am weary,” said Mr. Hatch, and removing his coat and boots he lay down on his own bed and was soon snoring.

Still Ree sat thinking, and John hummed a tune softly to himself as he lay restfully on his back, carelessly wondering whether their visitor spoke the truth when he said, “Me good Injun.” All the fear he had felt during the afternoon was forgotten. As usual he was trusting to Ree to see that precautions were taken and that no harm came to them. In the corner the man under the bearskin seemed sound asleep.

“What was that?”

Ree and John leaped to their feet together. Sharp and clear above the rattle and roar of the nightwind came the report of a rifle, fired at no great distance.
204

“No, no! Don’t open the door!” John called, as his more fearless chum sprang forward to look out.

The words came too late. In a trice Ree had the door swung wide and was peering into the gloom, shading his eyes with his hands.

“Help! Help!”

It was the voice of a white man, borne on the wind clearly and distinctly, out of the darkness from the edge of the forest.

“Who—who-o-o!—who-o who-oo!”

As if a giant owl were calling from the blackness of the storm, came these f............