Yellow Panther looked at him with indignation and contempt, and hesitated. Braxton Wyatt trembled once more. Would the chief believe? He must believe! He must make him believe, or he would die!
"I wished to tell you before we started, Yellow Panther," he said, "but I feared then your just anger. Now we have lost the trail, and I must save you from further trouble. Why should I tell you this now if it is not true? Why else should I avow that I have spoken false words?"
Yellow Panther looked at the unhappy figure and face, and believed.
"It is enough," he said. "We will go back to our own village. Come!"
He spoke to his warriors, and they returned swiftly on their own tracks to the Miami village. Braxton Wyatt went with them, and he dared not look back once at that fateful clump of bushes.
When they were gone far beyond sight, Henry Ware, Tom Ross, and Shif'less Sol rose up, looked at each other, and laughed.
"That wuz well done, Henry," said Shif'less Sol lazily. "I never knowed a purtier trick to be told. He's clean caught in his own net. If he wuz to tell the truth now to the chief, Yellow Panther wouldn't believe him."
"And if he were to believe him, Yellow Panther, in his anger, would tomahawk him," said Henry Ware, "No, Braxton Wyatt will not dare to tell."
"And now we may take it easy," said Tom Ross. "But I wouldn't like to be in your place, Henry, ef ever you wuz to fall into the hands uv Yellow Panther an' that renegade."
"I'll take care that I don't have any such bad luck," said Henry. "And now we must find Paul and Jim."
Serenely satisfied, they resumed their journey, but now they went at a slower gait.
The three walked slowly on for a long time, curving about gradually to the region in which Paul and Jim Hart remained hidden. They did not say much, but Shif'less Sol was slowly swelling with an admiration which was bound to find a vent some time or other.
"Henry," he burst out at last, "this whole scheme o' yours has been worked in the most beautiful way, an' that last trick with Braxton Wyatt wuz the finest I ever saw."
"There were three of us," said Henry briefly and modestly.
"It's a great thing to use your brain," said the shiftless one sagely. "I'm thinkin' o' doin' it hereafter myself."