“Honestly, my neck’s out of joint, looking around trees all day,” John declared. But he was so light-hearted, so glad to be home again, that he fairly giggled as he spoke.

“Faith! I’m glad you’re here, unhealthy as it is for you,” Kingdom answered. “What with Lone-Elk always just over my shoulder, and now with the snow on the ground, I don’t know how I’d ever have managed to get to you in the woods!” And so the boys fell to telling each other all that each had been doing and all that had happened since their last meeting.

Kingdom showed the greatest interest in the discovery of the bodies of the two men whom John had found dead under the brush heap at the salt springs. He inquired for every shred of information possible for John to give him, and tried his best to determine whether the murder had been committed by Indians or white men. If it was done by white persons, he declared, the slayer or slayers had at any rate tried to make it appear that Indians were the guilty ones. The carrying off the scalps of the dead and removing all valuables from the bodies indicated this.

“Still, I don’t see what it signifies, or how it makes any great difference to us, one way or another,” said John, as Ree intimated that he would have looked into the matter more thoroughly had it been he who made the discovery.

“Why, of course you do, John! Just think a minute! I’ve told you about seeing that camp in the little hollow and the salt spread out to dry. Now, then, where did that salt come from if not from the big ‘lick’? You mark my word that when we find out whose camping place that is, or was, we will know pretty well who did that killing. What we ought to do is to carry the whole story to Wayne’s men or to Fort Pitt; but it wouldn’t do any good to go there merely telling that we had found a couple of men dead. Persons are found dead along the border, somewhere, every day in the year. But if we could go to Wayne, or anyone else, and show them that the murderers were white robbers, and not simply sneaking redskins, there would be more of a chance to call somebody to account.”

“That’s so,” John answered rather thoughtfully, yet in a way which showed Ree that he did not quite understand.

“Why, certainly!” Kingdom exclaimed somewhat warmly. “If the camp I saw was the camp of the murderers, who is it likely that they are? British! That’s what! British from Detroit, over in this part of the woods for no good purpose—spying around Fort Pitt or stirring the Indians up to hostilities! And that camp I saw was a white man’s camp! Indians don’t care much about salt to begin with, and in the second place what white men would be traveling in this direction and carrying salt with them but some one headed for Detroit or some other settlement off that way?”

But having reached a conclusion that Indians, and no one else, were responsible for the two dead bodies beneath the brush pile, John could not easily get the notion out of his mind, and his interest in Kingdom’s speculations was therefore much less than ordinarily it would have been.

On the other hand Ree pieced together every scrap of evidence he could find—the stained glove that John had picked up, the indications he noticed that others had journeyed toward the “lick” from the west, and the certainty his own find presented that some one had lately obtained salt, presumably from the springs, in quite considerable quantities.

Extremely tired and too drowsy, now that he was in the midst of warmth and comfort again, to think much of the danger of his position, John fell into a doze on his bunk while Kingdom still pondered upon the salt springs mystery. In the darkness Ree did not at once notice that Jerome was asleep. Later he made the discovery and it was quite like him that he covered his friend over with a bearskin, and set himself to watch till daybreak.

It was fairly light when John awoke. Ree had already been out and the tracks he found showed that Lone-Elk had abandoned his watch. He had gone some time after it stopped snowing in the night, but there was no knowing when he might return.

Although the fact did not occur to either of the two boys at the time, the coming of the snow was, under the circumstances, a blessing in disguise. For the Seneca, after watching vigilantly until nearly morning, and feeling confident that no one except Kingdom had entered the cabin, was equally sure that no one would do so now that the snow would at once reveal the trail. With this thought in mind he had quit his post and, so far as his own trail showed, had returned again to the town beside the lake.

The perfect quiet within the clearing, and the sense of comfort and greater security which Ree found in having companionship once more, permitted him to be persuaded to lie down for the sleep and rest he so greatly needed, while the younger of the lads did guard duty at the loopholes in the cabin wall. At the first sign of anyone approaching, it was agreed he should call Ree, then quickly conceal himself in the loft. Sooner than the boys expected, the worth of their plan was put to the test.

A party of seven Indians, Wyandots from the region of Sandusky, traveling up the river in canoes, landed that morning at the point where the river met the portage trail, near the cabin of the young Palefaces. As did most of the Indians for many miles around, they knew of the presence of the two venturesome white lads in the wilderness, and did not hesitate to stop for a warm bite to eat and to see what the Paleface brothers offered in the way of trade.

Little did the Wyandots guess as they drew near the cabin, however, the flurry their presence caused inside. A mere whisper from John awakened Ree. In a twinkling the latter sent Jerome climbing into the loft “like a scared rabbit into its hole,” as he afterward expressed it, and pulling the little ladder up after him.

Kingdom greeted the visitors in his pleasantest manner. They spread their hands before the bright blaze in the big fireplace, and ate heartily of the meat he set before them. Nevertheless, when the strangers showed a disposition to look about rather more closely than seemed natural, even standing on tip-toe to peer into the loft, the lad grew decidedly uneasy.

As for John, he watched through a crack all that went on below with a great deal of interest, indeed. He was scarcely more than a foot above the heads of the taller Indians. The least sound from his direction would reach them and excite their suspicion.

Would the Wyandots never go?

Before they had been five minutes in the cabin Ree was wondering why they lingered so. Every second was magnified sixtyfold as he watched and waited, doing his best to appear perfectly at ease.

“Much skins up here,” one swarthy young fellow with a single black and red feather in his hair remarked, and with his foot on a stool climbed partially into the loft.

“Oh, not many—you come down now, brother! You’ll bring poles and all down on our heads,” Ree answered, and quickly drawing the Wyandot down, placed the stool in a place where it would not be so readily available for such use again.

“Have the Wyandots any salt to trade for knives or cloth or anything else we have for them?” asked Kingdom, hoping to obtain information which might be valuable.

“No salt; Injuns got no salt. Paleface get big heap salt at big ‘lick,’” answered the leader of the band. “Paleface over yonder—him have salt. Him trade, maybe.”

“Where? Where over yonder do you mean?” Kingdom inquired, pretending to be little interested.

“Over yonder—down river. Him have camp piece back from river, yonder.”

“Just one man, is it!” Ree asked.

“Ugh! two—leben—four—cuss! Injun don’t know!” the Wyandot returned, and seeing that the redskin suspected that he was being “pumped,” Ree changed the subject as naturally as he could.

Every moment that the Wyandots tarried the boy feared their next words would be to ask where John was. All the Indians knew there were two of the white boys, and that they were usually together. Had these travelers learned of the charge of witchcraft against Little Paleface? Kingdom dared not turn their thoughts in that direction by any words pertaining to the subject, and he was glad enough to say goodbye to them, at last, even though on this point he had gleaned no information.

There was no need for Kingdom to tell what had been said and done by the visitors when, after they were well out of sight, John came clambering down from the loft.

“I’m getting awful tired of being a witch, Ree,” the latter began, peeping out of a loophole. “What in the world’s the use of our staying here and living this way? I’m not complaining, old boy, you know I’m not; but this sort of thing is likely to last all winter. You can’t find out how Big Buffalo was killed, and until you know, every mother’s son of those Delawares swallow all that Lone-Elk tells them. So how’s it going to end? Am I to jump and run like a whipped pup, all winter, every time we hear a noise?”

“Just you wait, my son,” Kingdom answered, quite gaily. “We know that the Seneca’s hold on Captain Pipe is his secret lead mine. Suppose we find that mine! Mr. Pipe will be glad to find out where it is. There! Now you see what I mean. You’re just feeling a little cross because you had to stay out of sight. But here’s another thing, John. We agree that we don’t intend to let any one Indian chase us away from here; but we have some business on hand besides that. We’ve got to find out, if we can, who killed those men at the salt springs. With all the reason we have for believing that the murderers are camped out just about under our very noses, we’re bound to look after them, especially if they’re white men, and—well, you heard what the Wyandots said just two minutes ago. Don’t you think, either, John,” the older lad concluded very soberly, “that I don’t see the danger we are in. I see it big and strong all around us; but we’ve gone too far to turn back unless we have to. If we can come out ahead of Lone-Elk just once, there will be no danger of his ever troubling us again. Pipe and all the Delawares will be our solid friends for all time. We don’t want to sacrifice all we have done here and the good start we’ve made, do we, John?”

Ree’s last sentence was an appeal. Jerome might have argued against every other point, but not against that. “We’ll stay here till water runs up hill, Ree, before we’ll budge an inch except we want to,” he declared with quiet emphasis. “So what are we going to do next?” he added.

“Wait till the snow’s gone,” Ree answered cheerily. “It’s thawing fast now and by afternoon we can hunt up that camp where I saw the salt spread out. Until then we will have to watch out that Lone-Elk doesn’t come prowling around again.”

“Good thing it’s all we have to do. It’s enough to keep one man busy,” John returned, and undoubtedly he was right; but nevertheless their labor was for nothing this time. The Seneca was not discovered, nor was there a single visitor to the neighborhood of the clearing.

Kingdom’s prediction that the snow would soon be gone was quickly verified; for the wind having changed to the southwest, a rain came up by noon which completed the work of the sun very quickly.

Call to mind the most gloomy, misty, wet and altogether disagreeable fall day you can remember, and you will have a fair idea of the sort of afternoon on which John Jerome and Return Kingdom tramped cautiously through the woods in search of the camp of the suspected salt spring murderers. The gloom in the thicker portions of the forest was little short of actual darkness and the mist or fog became so dense, as time went on, that objects were indistinguishable at a distance of more than a few yards.

The secret nature of their expedition and Kingdom’s oft expressed belief that the camp they sought was occupied by British traders, or even soldiers from about Detroit, caused both the boys to feel a great deal of importance attaching to their undertaking. Just what they expected to discover, however, or what they intended saying regarding the purpose of their visit, in case they found the birds in their nest, neither of the two could very well have told.

Time and its developments answer many questions and so were the questions confronting Ree and John disposed of a little later. Kingdom had little difficulty in leading the way to the camp he had so strangely discovered. His familiarity with the woods for miles around would have made any spot in the vicinity of the cabin easily located.

Favored by the mist and semi-darkness, the two boys readily approached very near to the edge of the little bluff from which they could look down upon the camp without danger of their presence being discovered. Then on hands and knees they went forward more cautiously.

The birds, were gone. The nest was there, just as Ree had seen it, except that the salt had been taken away; but the camp was unoccupied and the ruins of the campfire were cold and water-soaked.

With much curiosity the two young detectives inspected the deserted camp and its surroundings. Nothing could they find to indicate who its makers had been or whither they had gone. In vain did they examine the ground within a radius of several yards from the heap of dead ashes. They discovered not so much, as a footprint.

Compelled at last to give up their search in disappointment, the boys were about to climb out of the protected nook the bluff formed on three sides of the camp, when John observed a small pile of wood such as would be gathered for a campfire in the forest. It was partially covered with leaves and being a rod or two from the site of the camp had not sooner been noticed.

“It may mean that they’re coming back and it may not,” the lad remarked. As he spoke he saw Kingdom pick up something a few feet away and quietly put it in his pocket.

“At any rate they’re gone,” Ree answered. “We may as well go, too.”

The boys climbed the ascent to the higher ground without further comment. When they had gone some distance John asked:

“What was it that you found, Ree? I thought I saw you pick something up.”

“What do you think, John? It was a glove, the mate to that other one. What do you think of that?” was the low but earnest answer.

And while the boys hurried quietly through the woods, there emerged from a small cave, screened from view by sumac and other bushes, in the little ravine, a roughly dressed man who climbed the bluff and gazed after them.