that was breakable had been broken, and some valuable blankets that could
not be carried off had been slashed and cut with keen knives, in a hasty
endeavor to ruin them.

"The rascals!" muttered the trader. "If only we can get on their trail they
shall pay dearly for their bloody work here."

Having surveyed the camp, he moved around among the trees and brushwood in
the vicinity. He soon found the body of an Indian who had belonged to the
pack-train party, and then another Indian who looked to be an enemy. The
latter had his face painted in peculiar wavy streaks which the trader had
seen twice before.

"The Wanderers!" he muttered. "I half suspected it might be so. This is the
work of that rascal Flat Nose--and if that is so, he is moving northward
with all speed to get away with his booty. More than likely some French
hunters--ha!" He broke off short, for in the undergrowth he had caught
sight of another form, that of a white man leaning against a fallen tree,
with a gun clutched tightly in his stiffened hands.

"Baptiste Masson!" he muttered, naming a rough French hunter and trapper
who, in years gone by, had worked for Jean Bevoir. "As I thought. It was a
plot between the Wanderers and the French! They mean to drive me from the
Ohio if they possibly can. Masson, eh? Can it be that Jean Bevoir, and
Valette, and Bergerac were in it, too? More than likely."

The Frenchman was dead, and James Morris did not hesitate to take his gun
and ammunition. He also searched the fellow's pockets, but found nothing of
value, nor any clew which might lead to the identity of his companions in
the outrage. A further hunt through the forest revealed where something of