MIKE AKD TIGER TAIL PLAY CHESS. 409 



their responses, and her wavering mind flickered between 

 reason and madness. 



When the lamp shone out from the tower, the scout, 

 satisfied of the safety, as he supposed, of Laidlaw and his 

 niece, carefully backed out from his concealment, and 

 drawing his canoe from under the rank foliage, noise- 

 lessly embarked and disappeared in the darkness like a 

 wraith. The fog and darkness concealed his movements 

 from all observation. He knew that with the darkness 

 he would be attacked by the savages, and that they 

 would leave unmolested the tower until he was taken or 

 driven from the neighborhood. Having the first move, 

 he moved away like a knight on the chess board, with a 

 great zig zag that carried him far out into the sound, and 

 then back to where he had seen the Indian canoes lying 

 during the day-time. 



This detour cost him much time, moving with the 

 caution that he thought necessary. "When he had floated 

 into one of the narrow creeks, 'or ditches, that ran up 

 into the beach, he left his canoe and the hound, and 

 crept dov.^n the shore to where he had seen the Indians 

 landing. Their canoes were gone. " Ha, I knowd it," 

 said Mike to himself, " they've given over the fawn and 

 are trailin' the painter now." 



He crept on slowly from bush to bush toward the 

 tower, and soon came out from the grove to the cleared 

 land, and warily examinined on every side for the rear 

 guard left by the enemy. There appeared to be none. 



18 



