There was only one thing for him to do—­wait.  So he went to his hiding-place of the day before and watched the sea with staring eyes.  An hour passed and his still aching vision saw no sign of sail; two hours—­and the sun was falling in a blinding glare over the Wisconsin wilderness.  At last he sprang to his feet with a hopeless cry and stood for a few moments undecided.  Should he wait until night with the hope of attracting the attention of Neil and joining him in his canoe or should he hasten in the direction of St. James?  In the darkness he might miss Neil, unless he kept up a constant shouting, which would probably bring the Mormons down upon him; if he went to St. James there was a possibility of reaching Casey.  He still had faith in Obadiah and he was sure that the old man would help him to reach his ship; he might even assist him in his scheme of getting Marion from the island.

He would go to the councilor’s.  Having once decided, Nathaniel turned in the direction of the town, avoiding the use of the path which he and Obadiah had taken, but following in the forest near enough to use it as a guide.  He was confident that Arbor Croche and his sheriffs were confining their man-hunt to the swamp, but in spite of this belief he exercised extreme caution, stopping to listen now and then, with one hand always near his pistol.  A quiet gloom filled the forest and by the tree-tops he marked the going down of the sun.  Nathaniel’s ears ached with their strain of listening for the rumbling roar that would tell of Casey’s attack on St. James.

Suddenly he heard a crackling in the underbrush ahead of him, a sound that came not from the strain of listening for the rumbling roar and in a moment he had dodged into the concealment of the huge roots of an overturned tree, drawn pistol in hand.  Whatever object was approaching came slowly, as if hesitating at each step—­a cautious, stealthy advance, it struck Nathaniel, and he cocked his weapon.  Directly in front of him, half a stone’s throw away, was a dense growth of hazel and he could see the tops of the slender bushes swaying.  Twice this movement ceased and the second time there came a crashing of brush and a faint cry.  For many minutes after that there was absolute silence.  Was it the cry of an animal that he had heard—­or of a man?  In either case the creature who made it had fallen in the thicket and was lying there as still as if dead.  For a quarter of an hour Nathaniel waited and listened.  He could no longer have seen the movement of bushes in the gathering night-gloom of the forest but his ears were strained to catch the slightest sound from the direction of the mysterious thing that lay within less than a dozen rods of him.  Slowly he drew himself out from the shelter of the roots and advanced step by step.  Half way to the thicket a stick cracked loudly under his foot and as the sound startled the dead quiet of the forest with pistol-shot clearness there came another cry from