He stopped his trembling with an effort of the will and walked to the rock under the trees, thirty or forty yards away. Already he saw Yellow Panther and the other Miamis coming, and he rebelled at the deadly menace from the bushes. But the love of life was strong within him. He looked at Yellow Panther, who was approaching with five or six warriors, and then he tried to form a rapid plan. He would talk with the chief, saying at first what his terrible enemies wished, and then, gradually drawing him away, he would tell the truth, and thus achieve the destruction of the three whom he hated and feared so horribly.
Braxton Wyatt raised one hand and wiped the perspiration from his face. Then, when a deadly fear struck him, he composed his features. Henry Ware had said he must tell a tale that seemed true. There must be no suspicion. The fatal muzzles were trained on him, he well knew, and the sharpest of eyes and ears were watching. He longed to cast one look at the bushes, only one, but he dared not for his life. It was forbidden!
Yellow Panther was at hand now, plainly showing annoyance. The lost trail could not be found, and wrath possessed him. He looked at the renegade, and uttered his discontent.
Braxton Wyatt longed more than ever to tell; they were there so near, it seemed he must tell; but the deadly rifles held him back. No one of their bullets would miss!
"Yellow Panther," he said, and his voice faltered, "let us abandon the trail and go back."
Yellow Panther looked at him, astonished by words and manner alike.
"Go back!" he said. "Did you not tell me that they were false, that there were no such warriors in the Shawnee village?"
Braxton Wyatt trembled, and the cold sweat came again on his forehead. If only those rifles were not there in the thicket! A mighty power seemed to draw him about for one look, only one! But he did not dare--it was death!--and with a supreme effort he wrenched himself away.
"I was wrong," he said. "I was eager for war, eager to see the Shawnees and Miamis go together against the white settlements in the south--so eager that I forgot the men. But I remember them now."
"Have you a crooked tongue?" asked Yellow Panther.
"No, no!" cried Braxton Wyatt, in mortal terror of the three rifles. "I had, but I have not now! I am telling you the truth! As I live I am, Yellow Panther! I was anxious for the war, anxious as you are, and it brought a cloud before my eyes. I could not remember then, but I remember now! The men were true Shawnees, and the Shawnee nation does not wish to go on the great war trail this year."
