" "How?" said Tom
Ross.
"I've got to slip up, release the woman, arm her, tell her to run
for the woods with the children, and then you four must do the
most of the rest."
"Do you think you can do it, Henry ?" asked Shif'less Sol.
I can, as I will soon show you. I'm going to steal forward to
the woman, but the moment you four hear an alarm open with your
rifles and pistols. You can come a little nearer without being
heard."
All of them moved up close to the Indian camp, and lay hidden in
the last fringe of bushes except Henry. He lay almost flat upon
the ground, carrying his rifle parallel with his side, and in his
right hand. He was undertaking one of the severest and most
dangerous tests known to a frontiersman. He meant to crawl into
the very midst of a camp of the Iroquois, composed of the most
alert woodsmen in the world, men who would spring up at the
slightest crackle in the brush. Woodmen who, warned by some
sixth sense, would awaken at the mere fact of a strange presence.
The four who remained behind in the bushes could not keep their
hearts from beating louder and faster. They knew the tremendous
risk undertaken by their comrade, but there was not one of them
who would have shirked it, had not all yielded it to the one whom
they knew to be the best fitted for the task.
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