It will give him somethin' to do, an' Jim is a sight better off when he has to work.

He ain't got no time fur foolishness." "An' you can tan its hide," growled Jim Hart, "although your own needs tannin' most." A few minutes later the two were amicably dressing the body of the stag, but Paul was already asleep.

He assisted the next morning at a conference, and then he learned what Henry and Ross intended to do.

The powder for Marlowe, as Paul had surmised, must be left for the present in its hidden place while they spied upon the great northern confederacy, now being formed for the destruction of the white settlements, and they would do what they could to impede it.

Henry, Ross, and Sol would leave that night on an expedition of discovery, while Paul and Jim Hart held the haunted island.