But no Blazing Arrow was there. He had disappeared like the coon at the flash of the huntsman's rifle.

Whether his acute sense of hearing had enabled him to locate the point whence came the double click, Larry did not wait to see. He had no intention that the miscreant, knife in hand, should come down on him with the resistless force of an avalanche.

Lowering his head to help conceal his movements, he drew back several paces, with a silence and stealth that the Shawanoe himself could not have surpassed. Then, crouching low on the ground, he waited, watched and listened.

His rifle was ready to be fired, and he resolved to let Blazing Arrow have the charge the instant he caught sight of him. The warrior was cunning, but he was liable to uncover himself in moving about the youth, whose precise location he could not know.

The danger of the latter was that other Shawanoes besides this one were near, and might close around him in the gloom. He was ready, and would fight any number of them if they beset him, but there could be but one result of such a desperate struggle.

Hearing and seeing nothing of his enemies, he decided to improve his situation by a further change of base. Inasmuch as the slightest slip was certain to prove fatal, the work was slow and surpassingly delicate.

The foot was lifted quickly from the ground and suspended in the air and lowered slowly, while the body leaned gently forward, waiting a long while before its weight was allowed to rest on the limb.

The tedious work was continued until Larry moved fully a dozen yards from his starting-point. Then, for the first time, he breathed freely and felt that it was safe to pause.

Still nothing was seen or heard of Blazing Arrow or his companions, and the youth, with a shudder, asked himself the startling question: "How came the Shawanoe to have the signal of Wharton Edwards?"

CHAPTER XII.

REVERSING POSITIONS.

Pausing on the edge of the natural clearing which had been the scene of the terrific race between himself and Blazing Arrow, Wharton looked back, and in the gathering darkness saw a flickering figure on the farther side, where the trail re-entered the wood, and he knew it was that of the champion runner of his tribe, whom he had not only defeated in the contest of fleetness, but in the singular battle of wits which followed.

"I'd wager a good deal, if I had a chance," muttered the lad, "that he feels just a little impatient with himself. I am quite sure that matters haven't gone to suit him."

It was in the power of the youth to turn the tables still more completely on the dusky miscreant. He had but to wait where he was until he was within easy range, and then shoot him down. It need not be said, however, after what had taken place a short time before, that this was a crime which nothing could have induced young Edwards to commit, even though he knew the Shawanoe was as eager as a tiger to secure his life.

"We're likely to come together again before this business is over," he reflected, "where I won't feel so much like letting you alone as I do now."

There was one uncomfortable proceeding which he did not mean to undergo; that was to have Blazing Arrow dogging at his heels like a sneaking wolf awaiting the chance to pounce upon him unawares. It is hard to imagine a more trying situation than that of knowing an enemy is stealing behind you in the darkness, on the alert to dart forward when your vigilance is relaxed, and make his attack with the deadly quickness of the rattlesnake.

Walking but a short way, Wharton stepped aside from the trail and stood motionless among the trees, where an owl would not have noticed him in flying along the path. He was not kept waiting many minutes. A soft tap-tap sounded on the ground as Blazing Arrow, in a loping trot, left the clearing and plunged into the wood, and then a faint, shadowy figure was dimly seen moving between the trees.

Directly opposite Wharton it came to a halt. Because of the obscurity he could not be seen except in motion, but the watcher knew what that meant. He was listening. He could not be assured what the youth in front was doing, and since his experience with him, the redskin understood that he had a young man above the ordinary as his antagonist.

A minute later Wharton saw something flicker in the gloom. The Shawanoe had started on again. This time he did not trot, for the protruding limbs interfered and would have made too much rustling. He walked rapidly enough, however, to overtake any one going at the usual rate.

Waiting until he believed he was at a safe distance in advance, the lad stepped back upon the trail and continued his journey toward the war party, where he hoped to be of service to his friend.

Since the white and red men had exchanged situations, Wharton had now to guard against running into the one in advance. If the Shawanoe should learn what had been done he would be sure to try some trick on the youth. By crouching along the path he could leap upon him as he passed and bear him helplessly to the ground.

It need not be said that young Edwards was on the alert. He could not have been more so, frequently pausing to listen, or to use his eyes, so far as possible, in the darkness.

Unable to hear anything through the air, he knelt down and pressed his ear to the ground. That served him no better, and he slowed his progress, and stopped more frequently.

"I wonder whether he has any suspicion that I am behind him?" was his thought. "It may be," he added grimly, "that he is thinking what sort of yarn to get up to explain why he hasn't brought me with him. If I am not careful he may nab me after all. I'd like to know whether he still has the headache, or whether he hasn't set me down as a fool for letting him off when I had the chance to finish him."

If it should so prove that Blazing Arrow was not aware that, instead of following the white youth, the reverse was the case, the space between them was certainly increasing, for one was going slow and the other fast.

When the distance passed became considerable, Wharton began to feel hope. They were close to where he had already undergone several stirring adventures, and he was almost certain the savage runner knew nothing of his whereabouts. Finally he turned off from the trail almost at the point where he had started to run away from Blazing Arrow and his companions.

Attentively listening and watching, he heard nothing, and then began a guarded examination of the immediate neighborhood. It was there the Shawanoes had crouched when he bounded across the gorge in quest of his rifle, but it was not to be expected that they had remained there ever since. The examination convinced him that all had moved somewhere else.

Wharton's concern being now for Larry Murphy, he did some close reasoning.

"I know he will, risk his life to help me, whom he naturally thinks is in a bad way, but how is he going to do it, or how has he got across to this side of the torrent? He can't make the leap that I did, and I am quite sure he wouldn't try to swim, because that would compel him to go below the falls. The chances are that he is on the other side."

This conclusion, it will be perceived, was correct; but had the reasoner known of that fallen tree spanning the gorge, it is likely his decision would have been different.

Before repeating the leap he had already made, Wharton spent more time in what may be called reconnoitering.

It was altogether beyond reason that the Shawanoes should be looking for any such performance, and with little hesitation, therefore, he walked out from the shadow, ran across the moonlit space of rocks, and, with the same ease and grace as before, placed himself on the other bank. He quickly scurried to cover, and then awaited the result.

It was nothing, so far as he could tell. Still at a loss which way to turn or what to do, but hoping that Larry might be somewhere within reach, he made the signal which has been described elsewhere.

"If he hears that he will know what it means. By gracious, he has heard it!"

From a point close at hand, and directly behind him, came the response, although, as the reader well knows, it was not the lips of Larry Murphy that made it.

CHAPTER XIII.

A BLUNDER.

Blazing Arrow possessed the subtlety of a serpent and the cunning of a fox. Underneath his actions lay his unextinguishable hatred of the white race. His anger against it seemed always to be flaming at white heat.

But the slyest and wisest of animals and men are liable at times to overreach themselves. Had the imp been content with what was unquestionably a remarkable exploit he would have held Wharton Edwards at his mercy, but he must needs spoil all by his attempt to make assurance doubly sure.

He had not seen the youth after he watched him disappear across the clearing where the back trail entered the woods. He never suspected that he was not on his front on the return, and failed to see his last leap across the torrent. Confident, however, that he was not far off, he began a search for him, with the hope of getting matters in better shape before rejoining his comrades with an account of his experience.

It happened, therefore, that when young Edwards made his dove-call to Larry Murphy, Blazing Arrow was so near that he heard it. He knew that it came from none of his people, and consequently must be from one of the whites.

With extraordinary cleverness he replied by several notes, whose resemblance to those causing them was so wonderfully close as to be perfect. Fearful, however, that he might not have hit the exact note, he repeated the call.

And in doing so he made the fatal blunder. One of the unchangeable laws governing Wharton Edwards and Larry Murphy at such times was that under no circumstances was either to repeat a signal without a minute or two interval. It was the violation of this rule that apprised the youth of his peril and gave him time to save himself.

Suspecting that it was Blazing Arrow who was near, Wharton retreated farther into the wood. In making the movement he used all the caution he could, and believed that no one had overheard him. What followed looked as though he was right in the conclusion, for the Indian, without moving from his tracks, signalled again, making the same mistake as before by repeating it, in his effort to repress his impatience at the delay in the response.

"I don't think I'll be in a hurry to open a conversation with you,"

thought Wharton; "I'm looking for somebody else."