in a tangled mass of bushes, near to the hollow oak that the three scouts had selected as a meeting-place, boone and kenton lay concealed.

they were waiting for the return of lark.

“strange, what can keep him?” muttered boone, impatiently.

“haven’t you seen him at all?” kenton asked.

“no, not since we parted.”

“it must be past twelve.”

“perhaps he’s been captivated by the red heathens,” boone suggested.

“that is possible,” kenton replied.

“shall we wait any longer?”

“just as you say.”

“hello! what’s that?” cried boone, suddenly.

the scout’s attention had been attracted by a slight noise in the wood beyond the little glade.

eagerly the two listened.

then, through the wood, with stealthy steps, came a dark form.

it passed close to where the two whites lay in ambush.

cold drops of sweat stood, bead-like, upon the foreheads of the two scouts as they looked upon the dark form.

it was the wolf demon that was stealing so stealthily through the wood.

“jerusalem! did you see it?” muttered boone, with a shiver, after the terrible form had disappeared in the shadows of the wood.

“yes,” replied kenton, in a solemn tone.

“what do you think it is?”

“it’s a spook, and no mistake,” kenton said, with a shake of the head.

“well, it does look like it, don’t it?” boone rejoined, sagely.

“yes. why, they wouldn’t believe this if we were to tell it in the station.”

“that’s truth; but seein’ is believin’, you know.”

“i think we may as well be going,” said kenton, with a nervous shiver, and a stealthy look around, as though he expected to see a demon form in every bush.

“and not wait for lark?”

“what’s the use? it will be morning soon. ten to one he has missed us and taken the back track to the station.”

“yes, that is likely. let’s be going, then,” coincided boone.

[33]

the two, carefully emerging from their covert in the bushes, crossed the little glade and passed in front of the hollow oak.

as they passed the tree, kenton, who was a little in the advance, halted suddenly and placed his hand in alarm upon the arm of boone.

“what’s the matter?” asked boone, quickly, in a cautious whisper.

“look there,” kenton said, in the same low, guarded tone, and, as he spoke, he pointed to the ground before him.

boone, with straining eyes, looked in the direction indicated by the outstretched hand of his companion.

on the earth before them was stretched a dark form.

carefully, rigid as two statues, the two scouts examined it.

“what do you think?” said kenton, in a whisper.

“it’s a man, i think.”

“can it be another victim of the wolf demon?”

“p’haps so; let’s examine it,” said boone.

then the two, stealing forward with stealthy steps, knelt by the side of the senseless form. it was a man attired in the forest garb of deer-skin. he was lying with his face downward.

the scouts turned him over, and then a cry of surprise broke from their lips.

the man was abe lark.

“lark, by hookey!” exclaimed boone, in wonder.

“and hurt, too!” cried kenton.

“it ’pears so.”

then carefully they searched for the wound.

the search was fruitless. lark was unhurt.

the two scouts looked at each other in wonder.

“nary wound,” said boone, tersely.

“what on yearth is the meaning of it?” questioned kenton.

boone shook his head in doubt.

lark’s face was as white as the face of the dead, excepting that part where the crimson scar traversed it.

large drops of sweat stood upon the forehead of the senseless man, and he breathed heavily, as if in pain. the veins, too, of the forehead were swollen out like whipcords. all gave evidence of great agony.

“what shall we do?” asked kenton, puzzled.

“first, get him out of this faint,” replied boone.

“what do you suppose is the matter with him?”

“it looks like a fit,” boone said, thoughtfully. “p’haps he’s seen that awful figure, and the spook cast a spell upon him.”

to the superstitious minds of the borderers this seemed a reasonable explanation.

“if i only had a little water now,” said boone, looking around him as if in search of some friendly spring.

“i’ve got a little flask of whisky,” and kenton produced it from an inside pocket of his hunting-shirt as he spoke.

“that will do fust-rate, but it’s kinder of a shame to waste good liquor,” said boone, with a comical grin, as he proceeded to bathe the forehead of the senseless man with the whisky.

in a few moments a low groan came from the lips of lark. then a convulsive shudder shook his massive frame.

“he’s coming to,” said kenton, who was anxiously watching the face of lark.

“i knew the whisky would fetch him,” boone remarked.

lark’s eyes opened slowly, and with a bewildered expression, like one in a maze, he gazed into the faces of the men who knelt by his side.

“what the deuce is the matter with my head?” he muttered.

it was evident that his senses were still in a maze.

“he don’t know you,” said kenton, in a whisper, to boone.

“no,” replied the other, in the same guarded tone; “he hain’t fully recovered yet; hain’t got his mind right.”

then again lark, whose eyes had wandered off listlessly in the forest, looked into the face of the man who bent so earnestly over him.

a gleam of recognition came over lark’s features. feebly he raised his hand to his head and passed it across his forehead, as if by the act to call back his scattered senses.

“kurnel boone,” he murmured.

“yours to command,” replied boone, with a hearty press of lark’s hand that lay by his side.

“and kenton, too,” lark continued.

“right to an iota,” returned the borderer.

“what on yearth has been the matter with me?” and lark, with the assistance of boone, rose to a sitting posture as he spoke.

“that is what bothers us,” boone said. “we have been waiting for you to come for some time, as agreed upon; and at last, growing tired of waiting, we concluded either that you had been taken prisoner by the shawnees, or else that you had returned to the station, having missed us in the forest in some way.”

a puzzled look appeared upon lark’s face.

“i can’t understand it,” he muttered, in doubt.

“understand what?” boone asked.

“why, how i came to be here.”

both boone and kenton looked at lark in amazement.

“don’t you know?” boone asked.

“no,” lark replied.

“ain’t you hurt in some way?”

“not as i knows on.”

“have you seen any thing terrible for to skeer you?” and the old hunter glanced nervously around as he spoke, as though he expected to see the dreaded wood demon by his side.

“no,” again replied lark.

“well, where have you been?”

“i don’t know.”

again the two scouts stared at their companion in amazement.

“you don’t know?” boone questioned, in wonder.

“no; i can’t remember any thing about it.”

“what have you been doing since we parted?”

“i can’t tell you that, either,” replied lark, evidently as greatly puzzled as the other two.

“can’t tell?”

“no. i can remember parting with you here some hours ago, and making the agreement to meet you here again. then i struck off into the forest, intending to scout into the indian village.”

“yes.”

“and that is all i can remember.”

“you don’t remember what you did after that?”

“not a thing about it,” lark replied, decidedly.

“why, that was hours ago. i’ve been a prisoner in the hands of the shawnees, and escaped from them, too, in that time,” boone said.

“i can not explain; it is all a blank to me,” lark replied.

“perhaps you were taken with a fit?” suggested kenton.

“perhaps so.”

“but where have you kept yourself?—for i’ll swear that you wasn’t hyer thirty minutes ago,” boone said, decidedly.

“i can’t understand it in the least,” lark replied, rising to his feet as he spoke.

“well, it’s the most mysterious affair that i ever heerd of,” boone added, with a doubtful shake of the head. “how do you feel—weak?”

“no, as strong and as well as i ever was.”

“it sounds just like one of the old hobgoblin stories that my father used to tell by the fire on a winter’s night,” boone said, thoughtfully. “i allers thought that they were all lies, but this story of yours is as strange as any of them.”

“it beats me,” kenton observed.

“well, let’s be going.”

and following boone’s lead, they proceeded on their way.