Now and then they looked toward the forest, and he was quite sure that they were expecting somebody, a person of importance.

He became deeply interested.

He was lying in a dense clump of hazel bushes, flat upon his stomach, his face raised but little above the ground.

He would have been hidden from the keenest eye only ten feet away, but the faces of the chiefs outlined against the blazing firelight were so clearly visible to him that he could see every change of expression.

They were fine-looking men, all of middle age, tall, lean, their noses hooked, features cut clean and strong, and their heads shaved, all except the defiant scalp lock, into which the feather of an eagle was twisted.