THE FOREST RUNNERS

CONTENTS


I. PAUL 1

II. IN THE RIVER 17

III. THE LONE CABIN 36

IV. THE SIEGE 59

V. THE FLIGHT 72

VI. THE BATTLE ON THE HILL 91

VII. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE DARK 108

VIII. AT THE RIVER BANK 125

IX. A CHANGE OF PLACES 142

X. THE ISLAND IN THE LAKE 157

XI. A SUDDEN MEETING 176

XII. THE BELT BEARERS 192

XIII. BRAXTON WYATT'S ORDEAL 217

XIV. IN WINTER QUARTERS 239

XV. WORK AND PLAY 254

XVI. NOEL 273

XVII. FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW 283

XVIII. WHAT THE WARRIOR SAW 295

XIX. THE WARNING 310

XX. THE TERRIBLE FORD 328

XXI. THE FLIGHT OF LONG JIM 340

XXII. THE LAST STAND 355





THE FOREST RUNNERS





CHAPTER I

PAUL


Paul stopped in a little open space, and looked around all the circle of
the forest. Everywhere it was the same--just the curving wall of red and
brown, and beyond, the blue sky, flecked with tiny clouds of white. The
wilderness was full of beauty, charged with the glory of peace and
silence, and there was naught to indicate that man had ever come. The
leaves rippled a little in the gentle west wind, and the crisping grass
bowed before it; but Paul saw no living being, save himself, in the vast,
empty world.

The boy was troubled and, despite his life in the woods, he had full right
to be. This was the great haunted forest of _Kain-tuck-ee_, where the red
man made his most desperate stand, and none ever knew when or whence
danger would come. Moreover, he was lost, and the forest told him nothing;
he was not like his friend, Henry Ware, born to the forest, the heir to
all the primeval instincts, alive to every sight and sound, and able to
read the slightest warning the wilderness might give. Paul Cotter was a
student, a lover of books, and a coming statesman. Fate, it seemed, had
chosen that he and Henry Ware should go hand in hand, but for different
tasks.

Paul gazed once more around the circle of the glowing forest, and the
shadow in his eyes deepened. Henry and the horses, loaded with powder for
the needy settlement, must be somewhere near, but whether to right or left
he could not tell. He had gone to look for water, and when he undertook to
return he merely went deeper and deeper into the forest. Now the boughs,
as they nodded before the gentle breeze, seemed to nod to him in derision.
He felt shame as well as alarm. Henry would not laugh at him, but the born
scholar would be worth, for the time, at least, far less than the born
trailer.