A small cornfield and a well-stocked vegetable patch occupied one side of the dwelling. On the other, there was a paddock containing two horses and beyond that a fenced-in pasture where three dun-coloured milk cows grazed placidly, tails swishing to deter the summer flies. Half a dozen chickens competed for scratchings in the shade of the cabin’s slanted porch.

A barn and a hen house made up the rest of the homestead, along with a clapboard privy and a lean-to that had been affixed to the cabin wall as a storage shelter for winter fuel. A pile of untrimmed branches lay nearby, next to a large oak stump. Driven into the stump were a hatchet and a long-handled woodman’s axe.

There was no sign of the farm’s occupants.

Looks quiet enough, Wyatt thought as he admired the stillness of the setting. Dawn had broken more than an hour earlier but across the surface of the meadow, dew drops shone like diamonds in the soft morning haze.

It was as the lieutenant’s gaze shifted to the plume of woodsmoke rising in a lazy spiral above the cabin’s shingle roof that a shadow moved within the trees on the far side of the clearing. Wyatt tensed and then watched as a young female white-tail stepped out from behind a clump of silver birch.

Releasing his breath, Wyatt remained still. His sun-weathered face, forage cap, moss-green tunic, buckskin leggings and tan moccasin boots blended perfectly with the surrounding foliage. The direction of the smoke had already told him he was downwind so he knew the doe had not picked up his scent. If she had she would have stayed hidden and Wyatt and the four men with him would have been oblivious to her passing; with the possible exception of the individual on Wyatt’s right flank.

Unlike the Rangers, he wore neither shirt nor jacket nor any vestige of a uniform, though his appearance would have left even a casual observer with little doubt as to his calling.

His red-brown torso was bare save for two hempen straps that criss-crossed his chest, from which were slung a powder horn and a buckskin ammunition pouch. A quilled knife sheath hung on a leather cord around his neck. His lower half was clad in a blue trade-cloth breechclout and thigh-length leggings. Leg ties beneath each knee held the legging in place. Like the others, he wore deer hide moccasins.

His head, while shaven, was not unadorned, for at the back of his scalp was a ring of long black hair. Braided into the hair were three black-and-white eagle feathers. As if his hairstyle and dress were not striking enough, there was one more affectation that separated him from his companions. His face, from brow to chin, was concealed behind a rectangle of black paint. Not an inch of his natural colour was visible save for a crescent of white muscle set deep in the corner of each unblinking eye.