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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Oskaloo, by Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Little Oskaloo
+       or, The White Whirlwind
+
+Author: Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh
+
+Release Date: August 4, 2010 [EBook #33352]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE OSKALOO ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Jennie Gottschalk and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: Small spelling and punctuation errors have been
+silently corrected. Spelling errors are listed at the end of the file.
+
+Bold text is marked as =text=, and italics are _text_.
+
+
+
+
+Complete in one Number.                            Price, 5 Cents.
+
+[Illustration: NICKEL LIBRARY]
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress by PICTORIAL PRINTING CO. In
+the office of the Librarian at Washington. D. C., in the year 1877
+
+SERIES ONE.                  CHICAGO.                    NUMBER 17
+
+LITTLE OSKALOO,[A]
+
+OR,
+
+THE WHITE WHIRLWIND.
+
+BY T. C. HARBAUGH.
+
+    [A] Changed from LITTLE MOCCASIN.
+
+[Illustration: =THE TRAILERS OF THE FOREST.--See page 4.=]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+HISTORY AND A MYSTERY.
+
+
+If, in the month of July, 1794, an observing white man could have
+traveled unmolested from the banks of the Ohio river due north to the
+famous Maumee rapids, he would have been struck with the wonderful
+activity manifested in the various Indian villages on his route.
+
+No signs of idleness would have greeted his eye; the young warrior did
+not recline in the shadow of his birchen lodge enjoying the comforts of
+summer life in mid forest. If his image was reflected in the clear
+streams, it was but for a moment, as his lithe canoe shot from bank to
+bank. Everything between the two rivers portended war.
+
+Indian runners were constantly departing and arriving at the several
+native villages, and excited groups of Shawnees, Delawares and Wyandots
+discussed--not the latest deer trails nor the next moon-feast, but the
+approaching contest for the mastery of power.
+
+A few years had passed away since they had met and conquered Harmar and
+St. Clair. Those bloody victories had rendered the Indian bold and
+aggressive. He believed himself invincible, and pointed with pride to
+the scalps taken on the ill-fated 4th of November, '91.
+
+But a new foe had advanced from the south--treading in the tracks of St.
+Clair's butchered troops, but with his stern eye fixed on victory. The
+Indians were beginning to exhibit signs of alarm--signs first exhibited
+at the British posts in the "Northwestern Territory," where the powers
+and generalship of Wayne were known and acknowledged.
+
+It was the impetuous, Mad Anthony who led the advancing columns through
+the Ohio forests. He had entered the blood-drenched territory with the
+victory of Stony Point to urge him on to nobler deeds, and with the firm
+determination of punishing the tribes, as well as of avenging the defeat
+of his predecessors.
+
+Tidings of his advance spread like wildfire from village to village, and
+councils became the order of day and night alike.
+
+The Indians knew the Blacksnake, as they called Wayne, and some, in
+their fear, counseled peace. But that was not to be thought of by the
+chiefs and the young Hotspurs whose first scalps had been torn from the
+heads of Butler's men.
+
+Such sachems as Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and Bockhougahelas stirred
+the Indian heart, and not a few words of encouragement came from the
+British forts on the Maumee.
+
+Simon Girty and kindred spirits moved from tribe to tribe underrating
+Wayne before the august councils, until a united cry of "war to the
+knife!" ascended to the skies.
+
+The chase suddenly lost its charms to the scarlet hunter; the dandy
+turned from his mirror to the rifle; the very air seemed heavy with war.
+
+The older warriors were eager to lay their plans before any one who
+would listen; they said that Wayne would march with St. Clair's
+carelessness, and affirmed that the order of Indian battle, so
+successful on _that_ occasion, would drive the Blacksnake from the
+territory.
+
+Under the Indian banner--if the plume of Little Turtle can be thus
+designated--the warriors of seven tribes were marshalling. There were
+the Miamis, the Pottawatamies, Delawares, Shawnees, Chippewas, Ottawas,
+and Senecas; and in the ranks of each nation stood not a few white
+renegades.
+
+It was a formidable force to oppose the victor of Stony Point, and the
+reader of our forest romance will learn with what success the cabal met.
+
+We have thought best to prelude our story with the glimpses at history
+just given, as it enables the reader to obtain an idea of the situation
+of affairs in the locality throughout which the incidents that follow
+take place.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was near the close of a sultry day in July, 1794, that two men
+reached the right bank of the Maumee about ten miles below Fort
+Defiance, which Wayne had erected and garrisoned.
+
+They looked like Wyandot warriors, painted for the warpath. They were
+athletic men, and one, as could be seen despite the profusion of paint
+which his face wore, was at least twenty years the other's senior.
+
+Long-barreled rifles were trailed at their sides, and their belts
+carried the Indian's inseparable companions--the tomahawk and scalping
+knife.
+
+"There goes the sun," said the youngest of the pair in unmistakable and
+melodious English. "Look at the old planet, Wolf Cap, if you want to see
+him before he goes to bed. These are dangerous times, and one does not
+know when the sun sets if he will be permitted to greet it in the
+morning."
+
+"That is so, Harvey," was the reply, in the brusque tone of the rough
+frontiersman, and the speaker looked at the magnificent god of day whose
+last streaks of light were crimsoning the water. "There was a time when
+I didn't care if I never beheld the sun again. It was that night when I
+came home and found no house to shelter me; but a dead family among a
+heap of smoking ruins, and in a tree hard by a tomahawk buried to the
+handle."
+
+"You have told me," the younger said, as if to spare his companion the
+pain of narrating the story of the Indian descent upon his cabin in
+Kentucky.
+
+"So I have, but I never grow weary of talking about it. It makes me
+think of the revenge I have taken, and it nerves my arm anew. Boy," and
+the speaker touched the youth's shoulder with much tenderness, "boy, I
+was goin' to say that I hope the Indians will never do you such an
+injury."
+
+"I hope not, Wolf Cap; but I hate them all the same."
+
+The frontiersman did not reply for a moment, but looked across the river
+longingly and sad.
+
+"Harvey," he said, suddenly starting up, "we have been separated for
+four days. Have you heard of him?"
+
+"Of----" the young scout hesitated.
+
+"Of Jim Girty, of course."
+
+"No; but we may obtain some news of him in a few moments."
+
+"In a few moments? I do not understand you."
+
+"I will tell you. I am here by appointment," said the youth. "In a few
+moments I hope to meet a person who will give me valuable information
+concerning the hostiles. She----"
+
+"A woman?" interrupted the oldest scout. "Boy, you must not trust these
+Indian girls too far."
+
+"How do you know she is an Indian girl?" asked Harvey Catlett, starting.
+
+"Because there are precious few white girls in these parts. Don't trust
+her further than you can see her, Harvey. I would like to take a squint
+at the dusky girl."
+
+The youth was about replying when the dip of paddles fell upon his
+practiced ears, and Wolf Cap started back from the water's edge, for he,
+too, had caught the sound.
+
+"Indians!" he said, and the click of his rifle was not heard six feet
+away, but the youth's painted hand covered the flint.
+
+"No enemy at any rate," he whispered, looking in the scout's face. "Stay
+here till I return. It is Little Moccasin."
+
+Without fear, but cautiously, Harvey Catlett, Wayne's youngest and
+trustiest trailer, glided to the edge of the water, where he was joined
+by a canoe containing a single person.
+
+His giant companion rose, and, full of curiosity, tried to distinguish
+the features of the canoe's occupant, who was met with a tender welcome
+at the hands of the young scout.
+
+But the sun had entirely set, and the couple formed dark silhouettes on
+a ghostly background.
+
+For many minutes the conversation continued at the boat, and the
+impatient Wolf Cap at last began to creep forward as if upon a napping
+foe.
+
+"I want to get a glimpse at that girl," he was saying to his eager self.
+"If I think she is soft soapin' the young feller, why, this shall be
+their last meetin'."
+
+The young couple did not suspect the scout's movements, and as he
+crouched not twenty feet from the boat and within ear shot, he was
+surprised to hear Catlett say:
+
+"I'll let you go when I have shown you to my friend. He wants to see
+you. Come, girl."
+
+Wolf Cap saw a lithe, girlish figure slip nimbly from the canoe, and
+when the youth turned his face toward the forest, as if to speak his
+name, he rose.
+
+"Here I am," he said. "Forgive me, boy, but I've been watchin' you.
+Couldn't help it, as you talked so long. So this is Little Moccasin?"
+
+As the border man uttered the euphonious title he stooped, for he was
+almost unnaturally tall, and peered inquisitively into the girl's face.
+
+It was a pretty face, oval and faultlessly formed. The skin was not so
+dark as a warrior's, and the eyes were soft and full of depth. Wolf Cap
+did not study the close-fitting garments, well beaded and fringed, nor
+did he glance at the tiny, almost fairy-like moccasins which she wore.
+
+It was the face that enchained his attention.
+
+All at once his hand fell from Little Moccasin's shoulder, and he
+started back, saying in a wild, incautious tone:
+
+"Take that girl away, Harvey! For heaven's sake don't let her cross my
+path again! And if you know what is good for yourself--for Wayne and his
+army--you will keep out of her sight. Is she not goin'?"
+
+The excited scout stepped forward with quivering nerves as he uttered
+the last words.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the youth quickly, but throwing himself between the
+forest beauty and Wolf Cap. "She is going now."
+
+"And will you promise never to see her again?"
+
+"We'll talk about that at another time. Come."
+
+The last word was addressed to Little Moccasin, upon whose face an
+expression of wonderment rested, and Harvey Catlett led her to the
+canoe.
+
+For several minutes he held her hand, talking low and earnestly the
+while, and then saw her send her light craft into the deep shadows that
+hung over the water.
+
+When the sound of her paddles had died away the young scout turned to
+inquire into Wolf Cap's unaccountable conduct; but to his surprise the
+rough borderman was not to be seen.
+
+But Harvey Catlett was not long in catching the sound of receding
+footsteps, and a moment later he was hurrying forward to overtake his
+companion.
+
+He soon came upon Wolf Cap walking deliberately through the forest, and
+hastened to address him.
+
+"Here you are! Wolf Cap, I want to know who Little Moccasin is."
+
+The borderman did not stop to reply, but looked over his left shoulder
+and said, sullenly:
+
+"I don't know! Do you?"
+
+Harvey Catlett was more than ever astonished; but a moment later, if it
+had not been for the dangerous ground which they were treading, he would
+have burst into a laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+AN ERRAND OF MERCY.
+
+
+Abner Stark, or Wolf Cap, was a man well known throughout Ohio and
+Kentucky in the border days of which we write. Moody and sullen, but at
+times possessed with a humor that seemed to reflect happier days; he was
+cherished as a friend by the Wetzels, Boones, and Kentons of the early
+west.
+
+He had served as a scout under Harmar, St. Clair and Scott, and was
+among the first to offer his valuable services to General Wayne.
+
+It is needless to say that they were eagerly accepted, and in the
+campaign of 1793 that witnessed the erection of forts Recovery and
+Defiance, he had proved of great worth to the invaders.
+
+Ten years prior to the date of our story the Shawnees, led by James
+Girty, crossed the Ohio and fell like a pack of wolves upon Abner
+Stark's Kentucky home.
+
+The settler, as we have already heard him narrate to young Catlett, was
+absent at the time, but returned to find his house in ashes, and the
+butchered remains of his family among the ruins. He believed that all
+had perished by the tomahawk and scalping knife.
+
+By the hatchet buried in the tree which was wont to shade his home, he
+recognized the leader of the murderous band. From the awful sight he
+stepped upon the path of vengeance, and made his name a terror to the
+Indians and their white allies.
+
+His companion on the occasion described in the foregoing chapter, was a
+young borderman who had distinguished himself in the unfortunate
+campaign of '91. Handsome, cunning in woodcraft, and courageous to no
+small degree, an expert swimmer and runner, Harvey Catlett united in
+himself all the qualities requisite for the success of his calling. He
+was trusted by Wayne, from whose camps he came and went at his pleasure,
+questioned by no one, save at times, his friend Wolf Cap.
+
+We have said that the singular reply given by Wolf Cap to the young
+scout shortly after the meeting with Little Moccasin almost provoked a
+laugh. The situation smacked of the ridiculous to the youthful borderer,
+and the time and place alone prevented him from indulging his risibles.
+
+But when he looked into the old scout's face and saw no humor there--saw
+nothing save an unreadable countenance, his mirth subsided, and he
+became serious again.
+
+"We will not follow the subject further now," he said; "I want to talk
+about something else--about something which I heard to-night."
+
+His tone impressed Abner Stark, and he came to a halt.
+
+"Well, go on, boy," he said, his hard countenance relaxing. "If you did
+get any news out of _her_, tell it."
+
+"The lives of some of our people are in danger," Catlett continued.
+"Several days since a family named Merriweather embarked upon the Maumee
+near its mouth. Their destination is Wayne's camp; they are flying to it
+for protection."
+
+"Straight into the jaws of death!"
+
+"Yes, Wolf Cap. If they have not already fallen a prey to the savages,
+they are struggling through the woods with their boats, which could not
+stem the rapids."
+
+"How many people are in the company?" Stark asked.
+
+"Little Moccasin says eight."
+
+"Women and children, of course?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And is this known by the Indians?"
+
+"Unfortunately it is."
+
+For a moment the avenger did not reply.
+
+He appeared to be forming a plan for the safety of the imperilled
+family, and the young scout watched him with much anxiety.
+
+"I don't know the Merriweathers; never heard of them," Wolf Cap said,
+looking up at last. "They are in great danger. There are women and
+children among them. I had a family once. We must not desert the little
+band that is trying to get behind Mad Anthony's bayonets. God forbid
+that Abner Stark should refuse to protect the helpless from the
+tomahawk."
+
+"And here is one who is with you!" cried Harvey Catlett. "Let us go
+now."
+
+"Yes. We must not see Wayne before we have offered help to the
+Merriweathers. Are we not near the tree?"
+
+"Nearer than you think. Look yonder."
+
+The speaker pointed to a tree whose great trunk was just discernible,
+and the twain hastened toward it.
+
+About six feet from the ground there was a hole large enough to admit a
+medium sized hand, and Wolf Cap was not long in plunging his own into
+its recesses.
+
+He withdrew it a moment later with a show of disappointment.
+
+"Nothin' from Wells and the same from Hummingbird," he said, turning to
+Catlett.
+
+"We are too soon, perhaps," was the answer.
+
+"They will be here, then. We may need their assistance. Hummingbird or
+Wells?"
+
+"The first that comes."
+
+"That will do. Write."
+
+The young scout drew a small piece of paper from his bullet pouch, and
+wrote thereon with a pointed stick of lead the following message:
+
+    "_To the first here_:
+
+    "We have gone down the Maumee to protect a white family flying
+    to Wayne. Follow us. No news."
+
+The message was dropped in the forest letter box, and the disguised
+scouts set out upon their errand of mercy and protection.
+
+One behind the other, like the wily Indians whom they personated, they
+traversed the forest, now catching a glimpse of the starlit waters of
+the Maumee, and now wrapped in the gloom of impenetrable darkness.
+
+Not a word was spoken. Now and then an ear was placed upon the earth to
+detect the approach of an enemy should any be lurking near their path.
+With the woodman's practiced care they gave forth no sound for listening
+savages, and with eager hopes continued to press on.
+
+The tree, with its silent call for help, was soon left behind, and the
+scouts did not dream that the robber was near.
+
+Not long after their departure from the spot, a figure halted at the
+tree, and a dark hand dropped into the letter box. With almost devilish
+eagerness the fingers closed upon the paper that lay at the bottom of
+the hole, and drew it out.
+
+"A paper at last," said the man in triumphant tones. "I knew I would
+find it sometime."
+
+The next moment the thief hurried towards the river with the scouts'
+message clutched tightly in his hand.
+
+Wolf Cap and Harvey Catlett would have given much for that man's scalp,
+for at the time of which we write he was the dread of every woman and
+child in the Northwestern Territory.
+
+His name was James Girty, and his deeds excelled in cruelty his brother
+Simon's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE TERRIBLE DISCOVERY.
+
+
+Leaving the characters of our story already mentioned for a brief time,
+let us turn our attention to the devoted little band of fugitives who
+were flying through the gauntlet of death to Wayne's protecting guns.
+
+While Harvey Catlett was conversing with Little Moccasin, watched with a
+jealous eye by the tall scout, a large but light boat was nearing the
+foot of the famous Maumee rapids.
+
+It kept in the center of the stream, as if its occupants believed that
+danger lurked along the shadowed banks, and consultation was carried on
+in whispers.
+
+The boat thus slowly ascending the stream contained eight persons. Four
+were men, strong, active and with determined visages; the others
+consisted of a matron, a girl of eighteen, and two children whose ages
+were respectively twelve and fourteen.
+
+Abel Merriweather, the matron's husband and the father of the
+interesting ones grouped about her, was the oldest person in the craft;
+his male companions were George Darling, his nephew, an Englishman
+called John Darknight, and a young American named Oscar Parton.
+
+To Darknight the navigation of the Maumee was well known, as he had
+spent much time upon its bosom, and he was serving the Merriweathers in
+the capacity of guide.
+
+Abel Merriweather, a little headstrong and fearful, had overruled the
+counsel of true friends. He believed that his family was in danger while
+the roof of the cabin near the mouth of the Maumee sheltered it. The
+muttered growls of war made him timorous, and he saw no safety anywhere
+save behind the bayonets of Wayne. Therefore, in company with his nephew
+and Oscar Parton, who was his daughter Kate's acknowledged suitor, and
+with John Darknight for a guide, he had embarked upon the perilous
+attempt of reaching Fort Defiance with his loved ones.
+
+"Of course we cannot stem the rapids," the guide said in response to a
+question from young Darling. "Our portage must now begin."
+
+As he spoke the boat began to approach the left bank of the stream.
+
+"We are nearing the wrong bank," said Parton.
+
+"Of course we are," the settler replied, noticing the boat's course, and
+he turned upon the guide:
+
+"What does this mean?" he demanded, with his usual brusqueness.
+
+"Nothing dangerous, sir. You see that we can best journey up the left
+bank of the river. The Indians are massing in the south."
+
+"But I have been advised by the scouts of Mad Anthony to go up the right
+bank."
+
+"You have?"
+
+"Yes, sir. If I understand you, you have not been in these parts for a
+month, while my informants and advisers were here but a week since."
+
+The guide did not reply for a minute, during which the boat continued
+toward the dusky shore, for his hand was upon the rudder.
+
+"Pardon me, John," the settler said; "but I feel constrained to listen
+to the scouts, one of whom was William Wells himself."
+
+"Wells, eh?" said Darknight, with a sneer. "Between you and I,
+Merriweather, I would not trust that Injun-bred fellow farther than the
+length of my nose."
+
+"I consider him a true man," said Kate, the daughter, who had overheard
+the latter part of the conversation between her father and the guide.
+
+"He doesn't look like a rogue, and I am sure that he would not advise us
+wrongly on purpose."
+
+John Darknight did not reply to the girl's remarks; but relapsed into
+sullenness, and doggedly turned the prow of the boat to the other shore.
+
+"What do you think now?" whispered George Darling in the settler's ear.
+
+"I really do not know, George," was the reply, as an expression of fear
+settled over the father's face. "I trust in God; but we are on dangerous
+water. Do not be so suspicious, boy, for you make me tremble for the
+safety of my dear ones."
+
+No further words were interchanged by uncle and nephew, and the boat
+touched the ghostly shore amid deep stillness of voice and tongue.
+
+But the ceaseless song of the wild rapids fell upon the voyagers' ears,
+and the first stars were burnishing the dancing waves with silver.
+
+The debarkation took place at once, and the craft was drawn from the
+water and prepared for the sleeping place of the settler's family. A day
+of hard pulling against the stream had ended, and the travelers proposed
+to enjoy the needed repose. The boat was large enough to contain couches
+for Mrs. Merriweather and the children, while the men would sleep and
+watch at intervals on the ground.
+
+No fire was kindled on the bank, but a cold supper was eaten in silence,
+and not long thereafter the settler's household lay almost hidden in the
+boat. Star after star came out in the firmament above, and the gentle
+winds of night sighed among the leaves; now and then the plash of some
+amphibious animal disturbed the stillness, but excited no comment,
+though the noise caused an occasional lift of the head and a brief
+moment of silent inspection.
+
+The camp was just over a little rise in the river bank, and the starlit
+water was hidden from the eyes of the watch, who, for the first part of
+the night, was the settler himself.
+
+He stood against a tree, wakeful, but full of thought, keeping guard
+over the precious lives committed to his charge. The boat containing his
+family was quite near, and the forms of his three male companions looked
+like logs on the darkened ground.
+
+He did not watch the latter, for suspicion never entered his head, and
+he did not see that one was rolling over and over, gradually leaving the
+bivouac, and disappearing. Immersed in thought, but quick to note a
+movement on the part of his sleeping family, Abel Merriweather let the
+hours pass over his head.
+
+At last the plash of the muskrat no longer alarmed him; the singular cry
+of the night hawk that came from the woods across the stream did not
+cause him to cock his rifle. A bat might have flapped her wings in his
+face without disturbing him. Despite the peril of the moment and the
+great responsibility resting upon him, Abel Merriweather was asleep!
+
+The fatigue of the past two days' voyage, and the almost sleepless
+nights had told upon his constitution. He had struggled against the
+somnolent god, but in vain; and at last passed into slumberland
+unconsciously and overcome.
+
+And while he slept there was a noise in the water which was not made by
+a night rat. Something dark, like a great ball, was approaching the camp
+from the northern bank of the river, and the strong arms that propelled
+it gave the waves thousands of additional gleams.
+
+It came towards the camp with the rapidity of a good swimmer, and at
+length a huge figure emerged like a Newfoundland dog from the water.
+
+It was an Indian!
+
+For a moment he stood on the bank and panted like an animal, then a low
+bird-call dropped from his lips, and a second form came from the shadow
+of a fallen tree.
+
+The twain met at the edge of the water, and with signs of recognition.
+
+"Oskaloo cross the river," said the savage, in the Wyandot tongue.
+"White guide break him promise, and land on wrong side."
+
+"Couldn't help it," was the reply. "The old man is doing just what Wells
+has told him was best. I tried to run the boat over, and bless me if I
+don't pay 'im for his stubbornness yet."
+
+"How many?" asked the Indian.
+
+"Seven."
+
+"White girl along?"
+
+"Yes; but recollect what I have said about her."
+
+"Oskaloo never forget."
+
+"Is the White Whirlwind over there?" and the speaker glanced across the
+river.
+
+"No; him with Little Turtle, gettin' ready to fight the Blacksnake."
+
+"That is good. Now, Oskaloo, go back. To-morrow night at this time come
+when you hear the night hawk's cry."
+
+"All come?"
+
+"Yes, all; but meet me first."
+
+The savage nodded and turned towards the water, and the next moment
+plunged almost noiselessly beneath the waves.
+
+As he put off from the shore a hand dropped upon sleeping Abel
+Merriweather's arm, and roused him with a start.
+
+"Hist!" said a voice in a warning whisper. "Father, you have been
+asleep. We are going to be massacred. John Darknight, our guide, is a
+traitor."
+
+The settler was thoroughly awake before the last terrible sentence was
+completed, and he looked into the white face of his little son Carl,
+whom he thought was sleeping beside his mother in the boat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LITTLE MOCCASIN IN THE CAMP.
+
+
+The settler was thoroughly aroused by his little son's startling
+communication, which appeared too terrible to be true.
+
+"A traitor, Carl?" he said.
+
+"Yes; an Indian who swam the river has been talking to him on the bank."
+
+"It cannot be," replied the incredulous parent. "He is sleeping----"
+
+He paused abruptly, for he made the discovery that but two forms were
+lying near the boat. The spot lately occupied by the guide was vacant.
+
+Then Abel Merriweather began to believe that Carl had not been mistaken.
+
+"Hist!" said the boy, breaking in upon his father's disturbing thoughts.
+"He is coming back."
+
+"To your place in the boat--quick! Do not let him see you here."
+
+Little Carl left his father and glided unseen to his couch in the boat,
+but peeped over the gunwales to watch the traitor's movements.
+
+Slowly and without noise John Darknight came over the hill, and
+inaugurated a series of cat crawls toward the spot which he had lately
+deserted. Once or twice he glanced at the settler, whose drooping head
+appeared to tell him that he still slept, for he recommenced his crawls,
+and at last, without disturbing his sleeping companions, regained his
+buffalo skin.
+
+But his movements had not escaped the sentry's eyes, and Carl was
+regarding him from the boat. The father was a prey to great perplexity;
+he believed that the guide's movements indicated treason, but he did not
+know what course to pursue. To discharge him at once might precipitate
+the bursting of the plot. To keep him longer and watch, seemed the
+better plan, and was the one which the settler felt inclined to adopt.
+He did not see how they could ascend the river above the rapids without
+Darknight's experience, for in the voyage thus far his assistance had
+proved invaluable.
+
+The night was far advanced and day was no longer remote, when Abel
+roused Oscar Parton, whose duty it was to stand guard until daylight. He
+did not impart his suspicions to the impetuous young man, but told him
+not to close his eyes for a moment, but to watch, for life was at stake.
+Then, instead of lying by the boat that contained his family, he dropped
+upon the ground beside the suspected guide, and with a hand at the hilt
+of his knife, watched the man who was sleeping heavily.
+
+A bird call from the guide's lips, or a suspicious movement, and he
+might have forfeited his life.
+
+"Father doesn't want to suspect anybody," murmured the boy Carl, who was
+surprised to see John Darknight sleeping so soundly in the camp after
+his meeting with Oskaloo on the banks of the river. "I do not know how
+he came to undertake this trip. We might have been safe where we lived.
+I know we are not here. He didn't tell Oscar about the treason, for I
+heard every word that passed between them. Maybe he doesn't think I saw
+straight. Well, I know I wasn't very close; but I would swear that it
+was the guide talking to the Indian, and didn't he come up the bank
+after the redskin left? I have a rifle, and I am going to watch John
+Darknight myself!"
+
+Having thus delivered himself of his thoughts, Carl Merriweather
+continued to watch in silence, and he saw that the night was wearing
+away.
+
+Oscar Parton was wakeful. No sound escaped his ears, and he saw the
+river growing darker with the dense gloom that precedes the dawn.
+
+Then he redoubled his vigilance, for the hour was suggestive of surprise
+and massacre; but the gloom gradually departed, and the first streaks of
+dawn silvered the flowing water.
+
+It was a welcome sight, for the long night of anxiety had worn away, and
+with strength recruited by repose, the journey could be resumed.
+
+The young sentry was watching the long arrows of light fall upon the
+waves, when an object startled him. It seemed to have risen from the
+river's unseen depths, but a second look told him that it was an Indian
+canoe. It skimmed over the water like a thing endowed with life, and the
+beholder, eager to inspect its occupant, stepped to the brow of the
+bank, but with the woodman's usual caution.
+
+The light growing stronger as the day advanced, revealed the tenant of
+the solitary canoe to the young man, and while he gazed intently, the
+craft suddenly shot like an arrow to the shore.
+
+Instinctively Oscar Parton raised his rifle, but the movement was
+detected by the person in the stream, and a hand gave the peace signal.
+
+"I cannot shoot a woman!" the guard murmured, lowering the weapon. "Her
+coming may be our destruction, but I cannot harm her. Bless me, I
+believe she is a white!"
+
+The work of a few moments sufficed to bring the canoe to the shore, and
+when its tenant stepped upon _terra firma_, she was confronted by the
+curious guard, who had come boldly down the bank.
+
+"White family up there?" the jauntily clad girl said, pointing up the
+slope.
+
+"What if they are?" said the young borderman, evasively. "Who are you?"
+
+"Areotha," was the reply. "The white people call me Little Moccasin.
+See!"
+
+With her exclamation she put a foot forward, and displayed, with
+innocent pride, a tiny moccasin gaily ornamented with beads.
+
+"It is a pretty name, but what do you want here?" asked Oscar.
+
+"Want to tell white father that Little Moccasin has seen him."
+
+"Seen whom?"
+
+"Don't you know--the young white spy who tracks the red men for the
+Blacksnake?" the girl said with surprise.
+
+"No."
+
+Little Moccasin was nonplussed.
+
+"Me see him," she said at length, and her deep eyes brightened. "Him and
+the tall hunter come by and by, maybe."
+
+"Assistance, eh?" said Parton, catching the import of her words. "Well,
+we shall not reject it. You don't hate the whites, then?"
+
+"Little Moccasin their friend."
+
+"But you are not an Indian. Your skin is like mine."
+
+"Been Indian long time, though," the girl said with a smile. "Have
+Indian mother--the old Madgitwa--in the big Indian village."
+
+"Don't you know where you were born, Areotha?" questioned Parton.
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"Come up to the camp. I believe that you are true to our people. We have
+a girl up there who will like you."
+
+"Little Moccasin like her already," was the artless answer.
+
+Having made her canoe fast to the bank by a rope of twisted sinews, the
+mysterious girl followed Oscar Parton up the slope. He led her straight
+to the encampment, where her unexpected appearance created much
+excitement, and she was immediately surrounded.
+
+Abel Merriweather was the first to question her, and Areotha was about
+to reply when she caught sight of John Darknight, the guide.
+
+The next moment every vestige of color fled from her face, and, staring
+at the guide, she started back.
+
+She looked like a person who had suddenly been confronted by a spectre.
+
+At that moment John Darknight's face assumed a bold, defiant and
+threatening aspect; but it was as white as Areotha's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A BRACE OF DESERTIONS.
+
+
+With one accord the fugitives glanced from Little Moccasin to the guide.
+They felt that the twain had met before, and that the present encounter
+was unexpected and startling to each.
+
+"What do you know about this girl?" said the settler to Darknight. "It
+seems to me that this is not your first encounter with her."
+
+"I should say that it wasn't," was the reply. "I had hoped that we would
+reach our destination without meeting her, for her presence among white
+emigrants or fugitives betokens danger. She is the witch of the
+northwest territory, and many is the boat that she has decoyed ashore to
+the rifle and the tomahawk. She doubtless recognized me, for I once
+pitched her into the rapids of yon river, and if she had her deserts now
+our rifles would rid the territory of its witch, though I know it is
+hard to kill a woman."
+
+"Abel, she must not stay here if she is to betray us to death," said the
+settler's wife, fast upon the guide's last words.
+
+"Not so fast, mother," interrupted Kate Merriweather, with sympathy in
+her dark eyes for the lone girl. "Remember that we have listened to but
+one side of the story--Mr. Darknight's; now let us hear what she has to
+say in her defense."
+
+"Oh, she's a cute one, and you'll hear the sleekest story ever told in
+these parts," the guide said.
+
+But Kate Merriweather did not appear to have heard him.
+
+"You have listened to the white man," she said to Areotha. "He has not
+given you an enviable reputation. Now we want to hear what you have to
+say for yourself."
+
+Reassured by the white girl's kindly voice and looks, the accused maiden
+stepped boldly forward, and said in a tone trembling but sweet:
+
+"The pale guide does not like to see Areotha here, for she knows him. He
+is more Wyandot than white man, and where is the boat he ever guided
+that has not bloody planks? Areotha does not know. Did he not tell the
+white man in his cabin that the red men would surround it and scalp his
+family, and then right away offer to guide him to the Blacksnake?"
+
+Abel Merriweather started violently. How did the forest girl know that
+John Darknight had done this?
+
+"This is insulting, and from a characterless girl at that!" the guide
+exclaimed, advancing a step.
+
+"Hear her through," said Kate firmly. "You have had your say; she shall
+have hers. Now," to Areotha, "tell us if you are the witch he calls
+you--tell us if you have ever decoyed the boats of our people to an
+ambush."
+
+"Areotha will speak boldly, though that man may repeat her words among
+the Wyandot lodges, and the warriors on the trail. She is the pale
+faces' friend. If the bee does not love to gather honey from the flower:
+if the Manitou does not love his white and red children, then Areotha
+has decoyed the boats ashore! She has spoken, and since she built the
+first fire for old Madgitewa, her Indian mother, her tongue has not told
+a lie."
+
+Kate Merriweather looked up triumphant. She believed that Little
+Moccasin had told the truth, for candor was in her voice, and innocence
+in her soft eyes.
+
+"There is an antagonism between your statements," Oscar Parton said,
+addressing John Darknight. "They do not harmonize as I would like to see
+them do."
+
+"Just as if you expected to hear that cunning forest trollop----"
+
+"Please be sparing with your epithets, Mr. Darknight. Do not forget that
+you are in the presence of ladies," said the young man, interrupting.
+
+"Yes, sir," was the tart rejoinder, accompanied with a quick, angry
+glance at Kate. "Yes, sir! I will, for I am a gentleman; but I was
+saying that you seem to have expected a confirmation of my truthful
+charges from the accused herself. I know her but too well, and many a
+poor white man and his little family have tasted death in the Maumee
+through her treachery. But if you wish to test it, I shall not stand
+between. When John Darknight's words of warning can be brushed aside by
+the lies of a girl like that one, it is high time for him to betake
+himself away. You will repent soon enough. Trust the witch and get to
+Wayne, _if you can_!"
+
+With the last word still quivering his lips, the guide shouldered his
+heavy rifle and tightened his belt, as if bent on departure.
+
+"How do you know that we believe the girl?" asked the settler, who had
+not spoken for several minutes.
+
+"How do I know anything?" was the snappish answer. "Do you suppose that
+I am blind, and a dunce in the bargain? Warm the viper in your bosoms,
+and, as you deserve perhaps, let it sting you to death."
+
+Then the guide strode madly away, and reached the edge of the river bank
+before another word was uttered.
+
+The events of the last moment had thrown consternation into the little
+camp, and the guide's hot words, mien, and his desertion, seemed to
+paralyze the tongues of the fugitives.
+
+But Abel Merriweather, white as a sheet and with flashing eyes, called
+out in a tone that halted the guide on the top of the bank:
+
+"One more word, sir!" he said. "John Darknight, I ought to shoot you.
+Last night an Indian swam the Maumee and you met him at the water's
+edge. There you proved yourself a low-bred renegade, a traitor to your
+own people--the plotter of the destruction of my family. I ought to kill
+you where you stand!"
+
+The guide did not reply. For a moment he gazed at the speaker and heard
+the clicking of four rifle locks. Then he burst into a coarse, defiant
+laugh and sprang down the bank like a startled deer.
+
+A few bounds brought him to the river, into which he plunged without a
+second's hesitation, and dived beneath the surface.
+
+Abel Merriweather and his friends, with ready rifles, waited vengefully
+for his reappearance; but he came up far below and dived again before a
+single weapon could cover him.
+
+The whites looked disappointedly at each other.
+
+"I ought to have dealt with him last night," the settler said,
+self-upbraidingly. "He will join the Indians, and deal murderously with
+us. God help my family."
+
+The party, smarting with chagrin over the traitor's escape, returned
+slowly to the camp, to meet a group of the whitest faces ever seen in
+the forest.
+
+Helpless in the shadow of an impending evil, Abel Merriweather's family
+gathered around him, and for the first time since the flight from home
+the strong man's heart sank within him.
+
+The other members of the party looked about for Little Moccasin, but
+Kate said that during the pursuit of John Darknight she had fled from
+the camp without an explanation of her departure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE EXCITING COUNSEL.
+
+
+James Girty, the white renegade, was known to the various tribes as the
+White Whirlwind. His brother Simon was the possessor of a few attributes
+of kindness, but _he_ was destitute of every redeeming trait. A
+repulsive face surmounted an ungainly body, but the fiend was possessed
+of almost supernatural strength.
+
+He was a power in the council, and the British agents stirred the
+Indians to resist Wayne through him.
+
+We have witnessed his theft of the message which Wolf Cap and young
+Catlett left in the hollow tree prior to their departure for the
+assistance of the Merriweathers and their friends. It is now our purpose
+to follow him and witness his dealings with the warriors of the then
+wild northwest.
+
+He crossed the river in a canoe which he drew from a place of
+concealment on the bank, and, having hid it on the opposite shore,
+plunged into the forest. He seemed impatient to read the contents of the
+paper which he had stolen, and as he reached the summit of a wooded
+knoll a cry of joy burst from his throat.
+
+For some minutes prior to his arrival on the top of the declivity,
+certain sounds had been wafted to his ears by the night winds. They
+prepared him for the sight that had burst upon his vision, but still he
+could not repress the exclamation.
+
+"I wonder if they are all there?" he murmured as he sprang forward and
+heard the forest resound with his Indian name.
+
+Girty had come suddenly, but not unexpectedly upon an Indian council. A
+fire that blazed in the ring formed by five hundred painted savages,
+furnished the light for the forest tableau, and revealed the renegade to
+the gaze of all.
+
+His quick eye swept the circle of faces as he passed through. He saw
+representatives of every tribe which confronted Wayne; he noticed a fair
+sprinkling of his own ilk, and a group of whites handsomely attired in
+British uniforms.
+
+The shouts that greeted his appearance ceased when he sprang through the
+cordon and halted in the fire-lit arena.
+
+The British officers exchanged significant looks, and Simon Girty moved
+uneasily in his position. It was evident that the arrival of James at
+the council was distasteful to him.
+
+The White Whirlwind did not speak until he had mastered the contents of
+the stolen message in the light of the fire.
+
+"Warriors!" he said, in the tone which had been heard above the roar of
+more than one forest battle, "I see that your council has been opened. I
+have been on the trail, and though I sought you when the sun went down,
+I could not get here sooner. Boldly, like a famished wolf, the
+Blacksnake marches through the forest; he comes to deprive the red man
+of his cabin, or his lodge, and to drive his children to lands where a
+deer track has never been seen. My brethren, to-morrow we march forth to
+meet this scourge of the northwestern territory. Let us be strong, and
+punish the venomous Blacksnake, as we punished the big soldier long ago.
+Be strong and fear not, for the soldiers of the king will fight among us
+in the common cause of all the Indians east of the Great River."[B]
+
+    [B] The Mississippi.
+
+Murmurs of approbation followed the renegade's harangue.
+
+A chief responded in a like strain, then another and another, until
+twelve had spoken for war to the knife. All this time the White
+Whirlwind stood near the council fire, with his massive arms folded upon
+his giant chest, and a look of triumph in his eye. He was in his
+element.
+
+The absence of such chiefs as Little Turtle, Buckhongahelas, and Blue
+Jacket, was noticeable; but their places were supplied with savages of
+lesser note, but equally belligerent.
+
+All at once there arose to address the council an Indian who created a
+sensation.
+
+He came from the portion of the living ring occupied by Simon Girty, and
+James gave his brother a quick glance, when he recognized the chief. But
+Simon appeared to be composed.
+
+"War?" cried the new speaker, who could not have passed his twenty-sixth
+year, "War means death to the Indian and the rule of the American
+throughout our hunting grounds. Parquatin is not afraid to lead his
+braves to battle; but where is the use? Who comes here to-night and
+tells us to bear our bosoms to the rifles of the Blacksnake? Does the
+White Whirlwind lead his braves in open fight? No! he will tell us to
+rush upon the Americans, while he trails some white girl through the
+woods; and make her build the fires in his hut. Parquatin hates the
+Blacksnake; but he despises the Indian who will listen to the forked
+words of such a pale fox as the Whirlwind. Parquatin has spoken."
+
+The young chief glanced defiantly around the circle of scarlet faces.
+
+With a face blanched to ghastliness by the first sentence, James Girty
+heard the speaker through--heard and stood dumfounded for a moment.
+
+The English, who had come from Fort Miami to attend the conclave, gazed
+with consternation into each others' faces, and the members of the
+council looked startled.
+
+In Simon Girty's eye there was a look of triumph, for Parquatin seemed
+his spokesman.
+
+"I defend myself!" the accused renegade suddenly cried. "I lead the red
+men when I tell them to meet the American soldiers. Parquatin, the
+Wyandot, is jealous; he dares to lie about me in the great council
+because I lead more and braver warriors than he. But the Indians know
+me; they spurn the lie as they hate the good-for-nothing lying dog!"
+
+A short cry of rage followed the cutting epithet, and with flashing
+tomahawk Parquatin sprang forward.
+
+"Here I am," said Girty, drawing his own hatchet and planting himself
+firmly. "I am willing to kill my enemies wherever I meet 'em!"
+
+The seated warriors--for the participants of Indian councils are usually
+seated--watched the scene with interest. Parquatin, young and not strong
+of limb, was no match for the renegade; but he possessed the spirit of
+the maddened tiger, and never thought of the strength against him.
+
+For a moment he glared at his calm antagonist, and then bounded forward.
+Girty received the shock with his hatchet's iron-like handle, and by a
+dexterous blow in return sent Parquatin's weapon spinning to the edge of
+the fire.
+
+The young chief was now completely at his mercy, and, as James Girty
+seldom spared a helpless foe, his doom was as swift as terrible.
+
+Parquatin met his fate with the red man's famous stoicism.
+
+With his arms folded upon his breast, he received the renegade's blow,
+and without a death cry fell backward--his skull cleft by the keen-edged
+tomahawk.
+
+"Now!" cried the heartless victor, swinging aloft the gory weapon, and
+sweeping the circle with his flashing glance, "now let the man who
+persuaded Parquatin to insult me in the council step forth and meet me
+face to face. He is here and I know him! His victim lies before me. Let
+him stand up and say that I lie, if he dare!"
+
+But no voice replied, and no man rose to confront the White Whirlwind.
+
+"Well, never mind," he said. "I would not strike him if he did rise
+against me. Gentlemen," to the English officers, "this is the bitterest
+moment of my life. Jim Girty is not callous to every affection. I bid
+you good night. Warriors, I will meet you before the big battle. Again I
+say, be strong!"
+
+As the renegade turned and strode across the ground, the circle was
+respectfully broken, and he passed into the dark forest beyond.
+
+It was a strange event for an Indian council, and was destined to decide
+the fate of many helpless families; but few knew it, then.
+
+There was but one man in the council who knew why James Girty spoke as
+he did to the British soldiers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE.
+
+
+The discovery of John Darknight's treachery and his escape filled the
+hearts of the fugitives with terror. The little band found themselves in
+the forest at the foot of the Maumee rapids, and with many miles
+stretching their perilous length between them and Wayne's camp.
+
+Little Moccasin, too, had deserted without a word of explanation, and
+several members of the party were inclined to believe her as treacherous
+as the English guide.
+
+George Darling, the nephew, was especially bitter in his denunciation of
+the girl, and in this he was seconded by young Carl Merriweather. The
+two resolved to keep on the lookout for her reappearance, and to shoot
+her on sight. They firmly believed that her coming to the camp had been
+prearranged by John Darknight himself, and saw in the desertion of both
+the successful working of the plot.
+
+In the brief and deeply interesting council that followed the double
+abandonment, the fugitives resolved to prosecute their journey without
+delay. Of course the boat could not stem the strong rapids, therefore it
+would have to be transported to a point above them, and that upon the
+shoulders of the men.
+
+The craft, while it was strong and capable of carrying eight or ten
+people, was unusually light, and when Merriweather and Oscar Parton
+raised it to their shoulders, they declared with joy that they could
+carry it all day without a rest.
+
+The fugitives did not resume their journey until a frugal breakfast had
+been discussed on the scene of the night's encampment. At that meal no
+one seemed to be communicative; the thought of the present peril or the
+shadow of the impending danger appeared to seal their lips.
+
+Abel Merriweather doubtless regretted leaving the cabin home at the
+mouth of the Maumee, and upbraided himself for having listened to the
+representations of the false guide.
+
+In Oscar Parton's mind one particular thought was uppermost--the safety
+of Kate Merriweather. Now and then he coupled with it a strong desire to
+deal with the man who had led them into the trap.
+
+The sun was silvering the waves of the river when the boat was lifted
+from the ground, and the journey resumed.
+
+The little party kept from the stream for fear of being seen by any
+foes, but near enough to hear any voice which might arise from its
+banks.
+
+They indulged in the fond hope of encountering some of Wayne's scouts
+who were known to be scouting in the vicinity, and the settler trusted
+that he would fall in with Wells, with whom he was intimately
+acquainted. But the sun approached his meridian without bringing
+incident or misfortune to the little band who pushed resolutely through
+the forest toward the distant goal.
+
+"Are you ready to fulfill your part of the promise, George?" said Carl
+Merriweather to his cousin at the noonday rest held beneath the shade of
+a great tree.
+
+George Darling looked up and saw the youth's face glowing with
+excitement. His eyes seemed to emit sparks of fire.
+
+"What do you mean, Carl?" he said.
+
+"Why, what we promised one another this morning--that we would kill the
+first redskin we laid our eyes on."
+
+"Yes. Where is one?"
+
+"Come with me."
+
+George Darling rose, and the two left the camp together.
+
+"There be two of them," the settler's son said, "and they are at the
+river; I saw them not five minutes since. A good shot, George. I'll take
+one, you the other."
+
+The eager couple glided toward the river, and the youth all at once
+pulled his cousin's sleeve and told him to halt.
+
+"There they are!" he cried excitedly, pointing towards the stream.
+"Look! do you not see them in the tree top? Real Indians, George, and no
+mistake. What on earth can they be doing? They are up to their knees in
+water."
+
+George Darling did not reply, but continued to gaze at the two persons
+in the tree top which lay in the water. Their skin proclaimed them
+savages; but they seemed to be washing--a thing which no Indian warrior
+ever does. Hence the spectators' perplexity.
+
+"Come, George, we can't wait on them," said the impatient Carl. "Beside,
+they will miss us at the camp. Now, let us give the rascals a little
+lead. Remember our promise to let no Indian escape our rifles."
+
+The young man heard his cousin, and, a partaker of his excitement,
+grasped his rifle.
+
+"The little fellow on the right," Carl said without taking his eyes from
+the couple in the tree top. "Leave the other one for me. He is as tall
+as a Virginia bean-pole."
+
+The victims of the pair were not fifty yards away. Unconscious of the
+presence of their enemies.
+
+They kept on performing motions with their arms and hands, which had led
+Darling to believe that they were patronizing the homely art of washing.
+
+"Ready?" whispered the boy.
+
+"Ready!" I've covered my man was the low but distinct response.
+
+There was a moment's silence. The word "fire" was struggling for
+utterance on Carl Merriweather's lips when his cousin's hand leaped from
+the trigger and covered the flint of his weapon.
+
+"Look at the tall fellow," cried the young backwoodsman. "By the snows
+of Iceland! he's a white man."
+
+Sure enough, one of the occupants of the tree had suddenly risen to his
+feet and turned his face towards the depths of the forest. The skin
+which had been red was white now. Water had metamorphosed him into his
+true character.
+
+Carl Merriweather grew pale when he saw the transformation, and gave his
+companion a look which made him smile.
+
+"Both are white!" Darling said. "The short one has washed his face.
+See!"
+
+"That is true," said Carl. "A moment more, and we would have sent
+bullets into their brains. Who can they be? Rascally renegades, no
+doubt, and as such deserve our balls."
+
+"More likely Wayne's scouts," replied the settler's nephew. "They often
+disguise themselves as Indians, and reassume their true character when
+it suits them. They are leaving the tree now."
+
+As the young man spoke the twain emerged from the tree top, and
+approached the brow of the hill.
+
+One was much taller than his companion, and his face looked sad and
+careworn. Both carried rifles, and tomahawks peeped above their deerskin
+belts.
+
+They cut a strange figure with white hands and faces, but with shoulders
+copper-colored, like the Indians'. Their scanty garments were of genuine
+Indian manufacture, and tufts of feathers, daubed with ochre and sienna,
+crowned their heads.
+
+"They mean mischief," Carl Merriweather suddenly exclaimed. "Don't let
+them get to camp if they are really enemies; don't let them see how weak
+we are."
+
+A moment later George Darling rose and spoke to the advancing couple:
+
+"Friends or enemies?" he cried.
+
+The strangers executed a sudden halt, and hastily cocking their rifles,
+looked about for the speaker. But the young man was not easily seen, for
+his body was screened by a tree.
+
+"Friends or enemies?" he repeated. "You can't advance until you have
+told us."
+
+"Friends, of course," was the response by the youngest of the twain.
+"You belong to Abel Merriweather's family, and we are attached to
+Wayne's command."
+
+"Thank God!" cried Carl Merriweather, springing from his place of
+concealment and hastening toward the new comers.
+
+"You saved your lives by washing the paint from your faces. What are
+your names?"
+
+"Mine is Harvey Catlett and my friend's is Abner Stark; but every where
+they call him Wolf Cap," was the reply.
+
+"And you are Mad Anthony's scouts? Glory!" the overjoyed youth shouted,
+and then George Darling managed to get a word in.
+
+"You are very welcome," he said. "Heaven knows that we need your
+assistance. Did you know we were here?"
+
+"We did," said young Catlett, "and as we feared that you might send a
+bullet into the first red face that greeted you, we thought best to make
+ours white before making your acquaintance."
+
+"Thank God for that," responded Darling fervently, and he shuddered when
+he thought how nearly he had taken the life of a succoring friend.
+
+It was with joy that the youths led the scouts into the forest.
+
+They felt that great assistance had been sent them from on high.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+A SECOND CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+Harvey Catlett and his companion were received with great joy at the
+camp near the river bank.
+
+The fugitives took new hope with their appearance, and seemed to think
+that the remainder of the journey to Wayne would be accomplished without
+further trouble.
+
+Mrs. Merriweather so expressed herself, when the young woodsman shook
+his head and replied:
+
+"We cannot save you in and of ourselves," he said; "but we will do all
+we can. The trails to Wayne's army are dark and perilous. I do not seek
+to keep anything back."
+
+"That is right, sir," said the father quickly. "My wife is prone to
+exaggerate good fortune. I do not want her to remain deceived. I
+comprehend the situation, and am prepared for it."
+
+"That is right," said Wolf Cap. "In these times one must know something
+about Indian affairs."
+
+"Now that we have exchanged our guide for you gentlemen, I am sure that
+our fortunes will mend."
+
+"Where is the guide of whom you have spoken?" asked Catlett, addressing
+the head of the family.
+
+"Across the river, I suppose," Abel Merriweather answered with a smile.
+
+"Deserted?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Just like the worthless guides of these days. It is a wonder that he
+did not get you into the Indian's power."
+
+"He attempted to, but failed."
+
+"Just so."
+
+At Wolf Cap's request Merriweather related the attempt made to get the
+boat ashore, and the two scouts listened attentively to the recital.
+
+"Now, how come he to leave you this morning? Let us know all, Mr.
+Merriweather."
+
+The story of Little Moccasin's appearance in the camp, and John
+Darknight's hasty desertion was then told.
+
+"Now what do you think of the girl?" the young scout said in a low tone
+to Wolf Cap.
+
+There was a tinge of triumph in the youth's voice.
+
+"What have I already told you about her?" was the reply. "I allow that
+her action is strange, but those Indian witches can outdo anything in
+the woods. I have my opinion, and shall stick to it. Of course you will
+let me do this, boy."
+
+"Certainly, Abner. I shall do nothing to embarrass you in it; but it
+puzzles me because you can see no good in the girl."
+
+"I'm sorry, boy--indeed I am. I wish I could tell you what I really
+think about some things; but not now, if you please. I'm going down to
+the river. Talk to the folks here; you know what to say. We are here to
+take them to Mad Anthony or die in the attempt."
+
+Having finished, the tall scout withdrew from the little group and
+betook himself to the water's edge, shaded by the leafy boughs of a
+giant tree.
+
+Harvey Catlett glanced over his shoulder at the retreating figure and
+then addressed the fugitives with a smile.
+
+"He is a mystery; one of the many that inhabit the backwoods. Why, he
+does not place any confidence in Little Moccasin; he seems to hate her,
+and yet I believe she has never lifted a finger of harm against him. But
+we have unaccountable antagonisms, and here in the woods one finds them
+plentiful."
+
+"But who can hate that dear girl?" said Kate Merriweather's musical
+voice. "I could easily call her sister, and live forever at her side.
+She is not an Indian, though she calls her mother Madgitwa. She cannot
+be treacherous to our people."
+
+"Thanks," said Harvey Catlett, bowing to the fair young speaker. "I
+rejoice to hear you speak thus of the girl."
+
+"I fear that Kate is thus partial because of her pretty eyes. I must
+confess that I do not like her. Her desertion means no good to us."
+
+The last speaker was Carl Merriweather, ever ready to join in a
+conversation where any one crossed swords with his opinions.
+
+"We will not argue the matter now," Harvey said, seeing the youth's
+flushed cheeks, and not liking to incur the displeasure of any of the
+fugitives.
+
+"Perhaps we had best not," responded Carl with a slight sneer and a
+meaning glance at his friend Darling. "Let us drop the subject, nor call
+it up again. I have my opinion, you yours, Mr Catlett."
+
+The young scout turned from the boy and began to talk in a confidential
+tone to the settler, which seemed to be a signal for a general
+disbanding of the group, and the two were left alone.
+
+"It is deuced queer," Carl Merriweather hastened to say to George
+Darling. "He is taking her part, and I am satisfied that she is full of
+treachery."
+
+"I am of the same opinion, and that he, one of Wayne's scouts, should
+defend her, is beyond my comprehension. She is drawing him on, and it
+may be that she really loves him. But it looks to me as if she were
+using him for a purpose. That scene between her and our guide was too
+theatrical to be genuine. They overdid it. It was a preconcerted affair,
+for it gave Darknight a chance to show his hand and get away. They are
+together now, my word for it."
+
+The boy shared his companion's opinion concerning the witch of the
+woods, and they formed a cabal against her beneath the tree whose
+shadows fell upon the murmuring Maumee.
+
+By and by Wolf Cap came up from the river and rejoined the occupants of
+the camp.
+
+"He has seen something; look at his white face," whispered Abel
+Merriweather to his nephew.
+
+"No ghosts, at any rate, for one does not see them at this hour," was
+the reply. "He will probably enlighten us."
+
+But the scout did not do so, but talked about the journey and Wayne's
+army, and the pallor gradually left his face.
+
+The noonday meal was discussed, after which the journey was resumed.
+
+As the woods were not very clear of underbrush, the progress was of
+necessity quite slow, and at nightfall the party halted in a picturesque
+ravine through which in years gone by some woodland stream had poured
+its waters into the Maumee.
+
+Wild, luxuriant grass covered the bed of the place, and the bank on
+either side was clothed in that verdure which so beautifies the woods in
+summer. It was a fit camping place for the night, for the mouth of the
+ravine was hidden by a fallen tree, and a fire could not have been
+noticed from the river.
+
+Darkness settled rapidly down upon the camp, and Harvey Catlett tore
+himself from talkative Kate Merriweather, and prepared to guard her
+while she slept in the boat.
+
+He took up a position at the mouth of the ravine and near the river. Not
+far away Wolf Cap kept his vigils, and little Carl Merriweather,
+determined to be of some service, kept sentry at the old hunter's side.
+
+Brighter and brighter grew the stars in the heavens that bent lovingly
+above the river, and the night winds stirred the leaves with a sweet
+melody.
+
+Now and then the cry of some night bird or animal would startle the
+sentries, but they would soon turn therefrom and listen for more
+important sounds.
+
+Harvey Catlett was on the alert, and his ears at length caught a sound
+that roused him. It seemed the peculiar tread of the panther, dying away
+like the step of the beast, and recurring no more. It was in vain that
+he listened for a repetition of the sound. The very silence told him
+that he had permitted something important to escape investigation.
+
+"It may not be too late to follow yet," he said to himself. "I am a fool
+that I permitted----"
+
+The strange cry that the night hawk sends forth when frightened from its
+perch, fell startlingly upon his ears, and he severed his sentence.
+
+"That is my panther!" he said. "There is mischief afoot."
+
+We have said that he was near the river.
+
+The cry, or signal, as the young scout hastened to interpret the sound,
+seemed to emanate from a spot not forty feet away, and with the skill of
+the experienced trailer, he glided toward it.
+
+The cry was repeated, then there was a response which seemed to have
+crossed the river, and that in turn was answered from the very shore
+which the daring scout was noiselessly approaching.
+
+All at once he halted and hugged the dark ground, for the night caller
+was before him.
+
+It was not a hawk, nor was it the stealthy panther that greeted young
+Catlett's gaze; but the figure of an Indian!
+
+Ready to spring upon the redskin, the scout resolved to witness the
+result of the bird calls.
+
+He expected to see several boats cross the river for an attack upon the
+camp; but was doomed to disappointment.
+
+A sound to his left drew his attention in that direction.
+
+The Indian heard it, rose and started toward the river. At the edge of
+the water he was joined by a figure that carried a burthen. The scout
+could not distinguish it in the uncertain light.
+
+A few whispered words passed between the twain who had stepped into a
+boat, and Catlett was about to try the effect of a shot, when a
+startling shriek rose from the ravine.
+
+It was a woman's voice!
+
+The occupants of the boat heard it, and shoved the craft from shore. Out
+into the stream it shot like an arrow from a bow.
+
+Harvey Catlett sprang to his feet and fired at the disappearing boat.
+
+A wild cry followed the shot, and the sound was still echoing in the
+wood when Abel Merriweather reached his side.
+
+It did not need the settler's white face to tell the scout what had
+happened. Mrs. Merriweather's shriek had already told him.
+
+_Kate was gone!_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE ARMS OF THE DEAD.
+
+
+There was no disguising the fact that Kate Merriweather was missing.
+
+Harvey Catlett felt that the stealthy tread which had fallen upon his
+ears was that of her abductor, and he upbraided himself for what he
+self-accusingly termed his inactivity.
+
+It is true that the hawk cry which he construed into a preconcerted
+signal had roused him to action; but the boat and its occupants, one of
+whom was doubtless the settler's daughter, had left the shore. And he
+had fired into the craft without thinking that his ball might find the
+heart of the fair girl, and imperil his own life.
+
+It was a startled group that surrounded the young scout, and almost
+uncontrollable anger flashed in Oscar Parton's eyes. Kate had been
+abducted during Catlett's hour on guard!
+
+The fact was sufficient to give birth to a new and bitter forest feud.
+But the young borderer avoided the lover's gaze, as he did not desire to
+enter into a controversy which calmer moments would make appear
+ridiculous.
+
+With remarkable tact and secrecy the girl had been stolen from the couch
+in the boat. Even Carl's wakefulness had failed to baffle the thief.
+
+Since the scout's arrival a feeling of security had settled over the
+camp, and the sleep of its inmates was deeper than it had been for many
+nights.
+
+The abductor probably knew this; but at any rate he had carried out his
+scheme at a propitious moment.
+
+In the exciting council that followed the abduction an hundred
+suggestions were offered, to be rejected. Wolf Cap and his friend hardly
+unsealed their lips, but listened attentively to all that was said.
+
+"Now what say you, Wolf Cap?" said Abel Merriweather, appealing to the
+tall man. "You have not said ten words about my dear child's peril, and
+we know that you are a king in these forests; and you have said that you
+would get us to Wayne or die in the attempt. For God's sake suggest some
+plan of swift rescue, for we are tortured almost beyond endurance."
+
+Slowly Wolf Cap turned upon the settler, who held his white-faced,
+anguish-stricken wife to his bosom, waiting for a reply which he felt
+would be freighted with salvation or doom.
+
+"Talk to the boy, there!" he said, pointing to Harvey Catlett. "He was
+on guard when _it_ happened. What he says will be done."
+
+All eyes fell upon the youthful scout.
+
+"I will save her if I can," he said quickly, and with determination.
+"Wolf Cap must remain. You may need him. Pursue the journey; it may be
+death to tarry here."
+
+"And worse than that to proceed;" Mrs. Merriweather said.
+
+"I think not, madam. Keep stout hearts in your bosoms. Mr. Parton, will
+you follow me?"
+
+"On the trail?" inquired the young man, to whom the question was
+unexpected.
+
+"Certainly, sir. I see that you have been thinking pretty hard of me
+to-night."
+
+Oscar Parton blushed.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, putting out his hand. "We are apt to think
+unadvisedly on the spur of the moment. I trust we shall be friends, and
+work together in all things."
+
+Catlett took the extended hand in a pledge of friendship, and pressed it
+heartily.
+
+"Come!" he said; "we must cross the river."
+
+Parton turned to press the hands of his friends.
+
+"No time for that," said Wayne's scout. "In these times we must say
+farewell with our lips. We have lost time already."
+
+He turned to the water's edge, and Kate's lover dropped Carl's hand to
+follow.
+
+"Can you swim?" asked Catlett.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then here we go. Keep alongside of me and swim noiselessly."
+
+A moment later the twain glided into the water, leaving an anxious group
+on the shadowy shore.
+
+Silently, so far as the form of swimming was concerned, the friends kept
+together and approached the northern bank of the Maumee.
+
+"Do you know who took the girl?" Catlett asked his companion.
+
+"How should I?" was the question that met his.
+
+Wayne's scout smiled.
+
+"I thought that you might have formed an opinion," he said.
+
+"No;" and then came the question, "what do you know about it?"
+
+"Not much; but if she escapes us, the terror of these woods will see
+her."
+
+Oscar Parton's face became pale.
+
+"Do you mean----"
+
+He paused, as if afraid to utter the name.
+
+"I mean that man!" said Catlett, as if his companion had finished his
+sentence. "Jim Girty has caused more anguish in this part of the world
+than the tomahawks and fire brands of a whole red nation. I believe that
+John Darknight was here to-night, and he and the White Whirlwind have
+been friends."
+
+The whispered conversation grew still, for the gloomy shore was
+discernible, and the thought of Kate Merriweather in the hands of the
+greatest renegade in the northwest, was enough of itself to seal Oscar
+Parton's lips.
+
+A long fringe of woodland welcomed the swimmers, and they drew
+themselves from the water. No noise save the plash of the ripples at
+their feet broke the stillness, and the sound was so musical that they
+could scarcely believe that the woods and the waves beautified a land of
+death.
+
+Wringing the water from their garments, the scouts inaugurated a search
+for the trail, or, in other words, for the spot where the boat had been
+drawn from the water.
+
+A line of moonshine lay along the edge of the stream, and this underwent
+a close examination, Harvey Catlett hunting down and his companion up
+the river.
+
+While Oscar Parton was not an experienced woodman, like his friend, the
+mysteries of the trail were not great ones to him. He had been reared in
+the forests, and from the very tribes that now sought his heart's blood
+he had learned much of the science of tracking man and beast. He felt
+proud of the notice which Catlett had taken of his woodcraft in
+permitting him to search alone for Kate's trail, and he inwardly hoped
+that he would have the good fortune to find it. The circumstance would
+elevate him in the eyes of the young scout.
+
+Now through the forest, and now back to the river, with its edging of
+moonlight, the two men crept like ghosts, letting nothing escape them.
+
+One could not distinguish the other for the dimly lighted distance that
+lay between them, but preconcerted calls told from time to time that the
+search had not been abandoned.
+
+Oscar Parton began to despair. He had passed beyond the line of search
+marked out by his companion and was on the eve of returning when he came
+suddenly upon a canoe with its keel just beyond the reach of the tide.
+
+The sudden discovery startled the trail hunter, and he was about to
+advance upon and examine the craft, when a night owl flew by and swept
+its cold wings across his face, as if to keep him back. But the youth
+did not heed the omen of portending evil.
+
+He crept to the seemingly stranded and abandoned craft, and peered over
+its side.
+
+What did he see? A dark object lying on the bottom, a tuft of feathers,
+a face, deathly and covered here and there with clotted blood. He turned
+away, and looked again before he saw that an Indian lay beneath his
+gaze, rigid, as he believed, in death!
+
+"This is the result of Catlett's shot," he said. "I thank God that his
+bullet did not reach Kate's heart. The other abandoned the canoe here,
+and Kate is with him somewhere in the forest."
+
+As he uttered the last word he touched the Indian, and what was his
+surprise to see the limbs move and a flash light up the deathly eyes.
+Oscar Parton saw the terrible embrace that was preparing for him, and
+tried to avoid it; but the red arms flew up as if impelled by electric
+mechanism, and closed around his body.
+
+He struggled and tried to signal his companion, but in vain; his face
+was pressed to his foe's, and he felt the death grip of the Wyandot
+crushing out his very life.
+
+But for all that, he tried the harder to free himself from the loathsome
+grip. Was his young life to be given up so ignominiously? And that, too,
+with Kate Merriweather's fate veiled by obscurity? The thought was
+awful, horrid.
+
+Not a word fell from the Indian's lips; the young hunter did not know
+that the scout's ball had passed through the cheek, mangling the tongue
+whose words had been heard in the council and on the trail.
+
+The struggle with the dying went on, and, as was natural, the canoe was
+pushed nearer the river, until the tide caught it and it was afloat! Out
+into the starlight went the craft with the combatants on board; down the
+stream toward the rapids, and each succeeding moment farther from
+assistance by the white scout.
+
+All things must end, and life, like the rest, reaches the shadow of
+death. A sudden gurgling in the throat, a quivering of the limbs,
+announced to Oscar Parton that his enemy was dead. Then again he tried
+to escape; but the limbs did not relax; they seemed destined to hold him
+there forever.
+
+"God help me!" he groaned. "Must I die now, and in the arms of a dead
+Indian?"
+
+The situation was so tainted with the horrible that the youth almost
+gave up in despair, and the boat swept down the river.
+
+But help reached him at the eleventh hour. The boat was checked in its
+course, and he heard voices above the dead arms that, like great cords
+of steel, held him down. He groaned to tell some one, he knew not who,
+that he still lived, and then he felt the Indian's arms torn apart. He
+was saved.
+
+With an ejaculation of joy at his deliverance the young settler looked
+up, to start with a cry of amazement. For the canoe that lay against his
+own contained a brace of Indians, plumed and painted for the warpath!
+
+From the clutches of the dead into those of the living did not seem to
+Oscar Parton, at that hour, a change for the better.
+
+He could not resist, for his rifle lay on the river bank, and before he
+could collect his ideas he was lifted from his boat into that of his
+captors'.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+LITTLE MOCCASIN'S "FATHER."
+
+
+Leaving Kate Merriweather in the hands of her as yet, to the reader,
+unknown abductor, and Oscar Parton a captive in the warriors' canoe, let
+us return to two characters of whom, for a while, we have lost sight.
+
+Deep in the forest that extended to the northern bank of the Maumee, and
+with but few trees felled about it, stood in the year '94 and for
+several years afterwards, a small cabin erected after the manner of
+western buildings, with logs dovetailed, strong oaken doors and heavy
+clapboard roof.
+
+So thickly stood the trees around it, that the keen-eyed hunter could
+not have perceived it at any noticeable distance.
+
+No little patch of Indian corn grew near to indicate the home of a
+settler, and no honeysuckles shaded the low-browed door to tell that a
+woman's gentle hand and loving taste had guided them heavenward.
+
+It really looked like the lair of a beast, for there were cleanly-picked
+bones before the door, beside which a fresh wolf skin had been nailed.
+
+It was not the home of refinement; but he who often slept beneath its
+roof and called it his, could sway hearts and drench the land in blood.
+
+It stood scarce ten miles from the scene of Kate Merriweather's
+abduction, a cabin memorable in the annals of the Northwestern
+Territory, for beyond its threshold the darkest treacheries of the times
+had been plotted.
+
+About the hour when the fugitives beside the river discovered that one
+of their number had been taken from their midst, a man emerged from the
+forest, and stepping quickly across the space from door to tree, entered
+the cabin.
+
+He did not have to stoop, as a tall person would have been compelled to
+do upon entering, for he was short in stature, but with a physique that
+denoted great strength.
+
+He was clad in the garb of a backwoodsman, and carried all the weapons
+borne by such a character. His face, almost brutish in anatomy, denoted
+the glutton, and his first step was to the larder, from which he drew an
+enormous chunk of meat upon which he fell with great voracity.
+
+"It must be eleven o'clock," he said, as he thrust the pewter plate
+empty into the cupboard, and went to the door as if to take
+observations. "He cannot be later than one, and, saying that it is
+eleven now, I have but two hours to wait. Can I trust the man? Haven't I
+trusted him for six years, and where is the time that he has played me
+false? I have put money into his buckskin purse, and he knows that at a
+sign of betrayal I would kill him as heartlessly as I slew Parquatin at
+the council in the hollow. That council!" and the speaker clenched his
+lips, and his dark eyes shot flashes of fire from their lash-fringed
+caves of revenge.
+
+"They made me kill the young chief," he went on, as if speaking before a
+stern court in his own defense. "Or I should say that _he_ made me do
+it. They say that I haven't got a spark of manhood left--that I am the
+only devil in the Northwest Territory, and hunt and dog me on every
+side. I _am_ a bad man, the worst perhaps in these parts. The Indian is
+my companion, and when he can't invent new deviltry, he comes to me. But
+I have some good traits left. The dog that steals sheep and bites
+children is capable of loving his master. I have a brother, and though
+we have together trod the paths of iniquity from the trough
+cradle--though he has sought to lower me in the eyes of the tribes, I
+would not lift a hand against him. No, Simon Girty, your brother loves
+you because your mother was his; but," and the renegade paused a moment,
+"but even a brother may wrong too deeply. Keep from me, Simon. Devil
+that I am, and fiend incarnate and powerful in these woods, I am capable
+of loving even _you_!"
+
+These words, though spoken in a low tone, fell upon other ears than the
+White Whirlwind's. Not far from his cabin door stood a great tree,
+gnarled and lightning-rent, and behind it, in its grotesque shadow,
+stood a lithe figure, girlish and graceful, and two brilliant eyes were
+fastened on the outlaw. The little hand that hung at the side and
+touched the beaded fringe of a trim frock, clutched a rifle which was
+cocked ready for instant use.
+
+"He would never tell me; he may tell me now!" fell from the lips behind
+the tree. "He has been talking about his bad life, and may be the
+Manitou is smiling in his heart."
+
+With the last word on her lips, for the voice and figure denoted that
+the speaker was a girl, a figure stepped from the shadows and pronounced
+the renegade's forest name.
+
+Jim Girty started and retreated quickly, as if to secure a weapon, but
+his eye caught sight of the advancing person, and he recognized her with
+a strange mixture of affection and hatred in his eyes.
+
+Areotha, or Little Moccasin, soon stood before the outlaw, looking into
+his repulsive face as if seeking a gleam of hope.
+
+"Oh, it is you?" he said. "Well, well, I haven't seen you for a mighty
+long time, but I have heard of you," and his brow darkened.
+
+"What has the White Whirlwind heard of Areotha?" the girl asked with
+childish artlessness, and she came very close to the man from whom many
+of her sex would turn with loathing.
+
+"Why, they say that you have been spying for Mad Anthony Wayne," he
+said, trying to catch the change of color on her face; but he failed,
+for none came. "If this is true, a bullet will find your heart some of
+these days, for I am an Indian as much as I am a white, and you must not
+spy against us. I am your father, but I cannot see how you came to love
+the accursed people who hunt me like wolves."
+
+He was speaking with much bitterness, and for a moment it seemed that
+Little Moccasin would forswear the Americans, and cleave to him. But
+that were impossible; the lamb cannot espouse the wolf's cause.
+
+"My father, why do you fight the people whose skin is white?" she said,
+after a minute's silence. "You must have had a bad heart a long time,
+for when we lived in the land of the Miami's, you scalped and burned as
+you do now. Little Moccasin loves you, but she loves all her white
+skinned people--but some better than others."
+
+The flush that came to the girl's cheeks as she finished the last
+sentence did not escape Girty's lightning glance.
+
+"I suppose you have tumbled into love with some graceless fellow--some
+one who would shoot me just to marry an orphan. I know that you don't go
+to the fort enough to fall in love with the British officers, and I'll
+be hanged if you shall tie yourself to an American. This will never do,
+girl."
+
+Her eyes fell guiltily before his flashing look, and when she looked up
+again it was with an altered mien.
+
+"Areotha will hear her father if he will tell her one thing," she said.
+
+"I'll tell you a dozen if I can," he replied. "Bless me, girl, if Jim
+Girty, bad as he is, doesn't think a mighty sight of you."
+
+He stooped, and his brawny arm swung around her waist. She did not
+struggle, and he looked into her eyes. The lion seemed to be making love
+to the gazelle.
+
+"My father, long ago the bullet of the white man struck you down," she
+said. "But you ran here and fell as the wild deer falls, in the brake
+beyond the hunter's pursuit. Long you lay here; your head was wild and
+you said many things when the fever of the evil spirit was upon you.
+Areotha never left you, my father. She watched, lest the palefaces
+should come; she shot the deer and gave you food----"
+
+"And saved the worst life in God's world, didn't you, girl?" interrupted
+the renegade, displaying more feeling as he drew the speaker to him than
+he had ever been credited with.
+
+"Areotha did what she could," was the reply. "One night, when the wolves
+went howling down the forest after the fawn which Areotha's rifle had
+failed to kill, the White Whirlwind said something that made his child
+wonder. He made her know that he took her one night when she was a
+little girl; took her from a burning wigwam beyond the big river. She
+asked him then to tell her all, but he said: 'Wait till the sickness
+leaves me,' and she waited. Now she is here; now she says, 'my father,
+tell me all, for in this war the bullet may find your heart, and Areotha
+will never know. Old Madgitwa did not bring me into the world; no, my
+father!"
+
+The face and voice were so full of pleading that none but a Girty could
+resist.
+
+His arm left the pliant waist, and his eyes resumed their old look.
+
+"You are too inquisitive!" he said. "It doesn't matter where I got you.
+You are mine, and the man--"
+
+He paused as if he was about to reveal something, which he would rather
+keep back.
+
+"My father, the Manitou, may send for Areotha, and the leaves will fall
+upon her before she can know who her real father is. Tell her. This may
+be the last time that she----"
+
+"Tell you? No!" was the harsh interruption, and all the revenge in
+Girty's nature seemed in his voice. "There are secrets which the stake
+could not force from me; this is one of them. There lives one man whom I
+wouldn't make happy to save my own life, and sooner than see you in his
+arms, I would drive this knife to your heart."
+
+With a cry Little Moccasin started from the blade that flashed in the
+starlight, and threw herself on the defensive, with rifle half raised
+and eyes flashing angrily.
+
+"You will not tell?" she cried.
+
+"Never!"
+
+The next instant she stepped toward the gnarled tree, and her rifle
+covered the renegade of the Maumee.
+
+"You've got me!" he said, looking into Areotha's face without a tremor
+of fear; "but I did not think that you would ever lift a rifle against
+the man who has been so kind to you. Kill me here, now, and the secret
+will be kept from you forever!"
+
+There was a spark of hope in his voice, and all at once the girl lowered
+the weapon. The outlaw was spared to scourge the region of the Maumee a
+while longer.
+
+Areotha put herself into his power when she lowered the rifle. With one
+of those panther-like bounds for which he was famous, Girty could have
+sprung upon her and removed her forever from his path. But he restrained
+himself; he even put up the knife, and did not seek to detain her when
+he heard her say:
+
+"My father, I am going!"
+
+With a look that spoke volumes, Little Moccasin turned on her heel, and
+plunged into the forest, leaving the renegade to his own reflections.
+
+"I think a mighty sight of her!" was all he said.
+
+He might have killed her, but he would not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+KATE MERRIWEATHER'S PROGRESS.
+
+
+Girty, the renegade, remained in his cabin door until the footsteps of
+Little Moccasin died away in the forest, and silence again pervaded the
+spot.
+
+There was a cloud on the outlaw's brow, and the longer he listened the
+more impatient and perplexed he became.
+
+The minutes resolved themselves into hours, and when he believed that
+the ghostly hour of one had arrived, an oath fell from his lips, and he
+turned into the cabin. But he soon reappeared with a short-barreled
+rifle, and left the hut as if bent upon hunting for some one whom he had
+been expecting.
+
+"Something unlooked for may have transpired," he murmured. "Wolf Cap and
+that young fellow may have disarranged my plans by appearing suddenly at
+the camp; but I am sure that Wells will never get the message which they
+left in the tree."
+
+Girty smiled as he recalled the theft of Harvey Catlett's message from
+the forest letter box, and congratulated himself that Wells and
+Hummingbird (a famous chief and spy in Wayne's employ) would find the
+tree empty when they should reach it. The self-congratulations still
+lingered in his heart when the report of a distant rifle, faint, but
+clear enough, nevertheless, struck his practiced ear.
+
+He stopped suddenly and listened.
+
+"A rifle, but no death cry," he said, addressing himself. "But too far
+off for that, perhaps."
+
+Then he stooped and put his ear to the ground, in which attitude he
+remained for several moments. But the stillness of death brooded over
+the vicinity. When Girty rose it was with a perplexed look; the shot
+seemed to revolve itself into a mystery, to which he attached the utmost
+importance.
+
+"There is one person in these parts whose bullets never make a death
+cry," he said; "but if she shot _him_, I don't see why, for she knows
+that we are friends. However, I'm going down to see what the matter is."
+
+He started toward the river at a brisk walk. It was ten miles distant,
+but he knew that the mysterious shot had been fired not far away.
+
+By and by his walk resolved itself into the dog-trot of the Indian, and
+he hastened through the woods as if a regular path stretched before him.
+
+The dew lay on the grass pressed by his dingy moccasin, and, save now
+and then the snapping of a twig, his progress sent forth no noise.
+
+All at once, as he reached the summit of a wooded knoll, he was brought
+to a stand.
+
+At his feet, as it were, was a space of ground over which a hurricane
+had at some time swept with relentless fury. The results of its work,
+broken trees and fallen ones, were apparent to the eye. Into this place
+the starlight fell, and the rays of the moon, soon to bathe herself in
+the waters of the Maumee, penetrated like shafts of silver.
+
+The scene that presented itself to the outlaw was enough to startle him.
+
+He saw two figures in the light--two living ones, we mean--but not far
+remote, with face upturned to the stars, lay a giant form, motionless as
+the earth itself.
+
+A second look told the renegade the author of the midnight shot. She
+stood beside a young girl, and these words in a well known voice greeted
+his ears:
+
+"White girl tired, but Areotha will save her if she will go."
+
+"Go?" cried the one addressed, and her voice sent a thrill of pleasure
+to the heart beating wildly on the top of the knoll. "Go, Areotha? You
+cannot name a place whither I will not fly with you at this hour. I
+wonder if they do not believe me dead already. My God! I see through the
+treachery of that man," and she glanced at the body on the ground.
+"Girl, is every one in these parts like him? He came to our home and
+persuaded father to fly to Wayne, offering to guide us; but he meditated
+treachery all the time. I see it now."
+
+"He makes no more bloody boats on the big river," Little Moccasin said
+with triumph. "He was bold to steal white girl alone."
+
+"No, no, girl. An Indian called Oskaloo assisted, but he was killed in
+the boat by some one on the shore--Mr. Catlett, perhaps. He was on
+guard."
+
+Little Moccasin's eyes gleamed with pride at the mention of the young
+scout's name.
+
+"He good hunter," she said with growing enthusiasm. "Areotha will take
+the white girl back to him."
+
+"Yes, yes, and then I will find all of them. Let us go now. Some person
+may find us here if we tarry."
+
+Some person? Yes; that "person" was already near, and as Kate
+Merriweather and her protector started to fly, Jim Girty, with a single
+bound, reached the foot of the hillock, and stood before them.
+
+The twain started back with a cry of terror; but Kate's retreat was
+quickly checked by the renegade's hand.
+
+"Not so fast, my beauty!" he cried with a hideous smile, a mixture of
+sensuality and triumph. "I am convinced that I did not arrive a moment
+too late. That man was playing me false!" and he nodded at the dead. "He
+wasn't on the trail that leads to my cabin. I suspect, miss, that he got
+struck with your beauty, and thought that he would outwit his employer
+and make you his own wife."
+
+Kate Merriweather did not reply. White faced and trembling, she stood
+before the outlaw, whose eyes devoured her peerless beauty, and from
+whose clutches she longed to escape.
+
+"John Darknight proved to be a traitor, and your companion paid him for
+his treachery, though I guess that she did not suspect that she was
+serving me when she pulled the trigger. Perhaps you do not know me," and
+there was a grim smile on Girty's face.
+
+"I do not, though----"
+
+"Though you may have heard of me, you were going to say. I fancy that my
+name has reached your ears. There isn't a woman in the Northwest
+Territory who has not heard of me. My name is Girty!"
+
+The settler's daughter uttered a cry of mingled terror and disgust.
+
+"Simon Girty, the renegade?"
+
+"No! his brother James--the worse devil of the two!" said the outlaw
+with a sardonic grin and a glance at the bewildered Little Moccasin.
+
+"But you are not lost to every attribute of manhood, James Girty," said
+the captive in a pleading tone that might have softened a heart of
+flint. "There are hearts that bleed for me to-night. Do not deal with me
+as they say you have dealt with others; but restore me to my dear ones,
+and win the lasting gratitude of all who love me."
+
+Following hard upon Kate Merriweather's last word came a laugh which
+seemed the incarnation of fiendishness. The renegade's eyes seemed
+filled with the heartless merriment.
+
+"Restore you to the boat? Let you go, after I have gone to the pains of
+getting John Darknight to guide you into my hands? Why, girl, you have
+not studied the character of Jim Girty."
+
+Kate's hope fled away, and she looked without a word upon the forest
+beauty at her side.
+
+"My father, let the white girl go," Little Moccasin said, venturing to
+meet the outlaw's flashing eyes. "See! I have killed the traitor. He
+will never betray my father again."
+
+"You served him right; but you were going to take this girl back to the
+river when I came up," was the reply. "She is mine, and the hand that is
+raised to tear her from me will fall in death. Come, my bird."
+
+He drew the settler's daughter toward him, and as his eyes flashed their
+fire upon her cheek, Kate uttered a shriek and hung senseless in his
+grasp.
+
+"Now go!" he cried to the mystery, as he pointed over her shoulder into
+the gloom of the forest. "Do not lift your rifle against me, for then
+you would never know who you are. Go! and follow me not. Don't cross my
+path too often!"
+
+She saw the outstretched hand that pointed her into forced exile; she
+noted the murderous eyes that darted from her into the depths of the
+tarn, and with a final pitying glance upon the unconscious girl, hanging
+over Girty's strong arm, she obeyed. For the second time that night he
+had sent her from his presence.
+
+"No man ever baffled Jim Girty!" he said, looking down into the white
+face which looked like death's own in the starlight. "For this moment I
+have plotted. Now I can desert the tribes to their own war, for she
+takes away all my warlike ambition. They may not see me in the next
+great battle. The hand of man shall not take her from me."
+
+Then for a moment he studied his captive's face in silence, admiring its
+contour and matchless loveliness.
+
+At length he started forward and stood over John Darknight.
+
+"Quite dead!" he said with evident satisfaction. "That young girl saved
+me a bit of lead and powder."
+
+Yes, the treacherous guide was dead. From that night there would be
+fewer bloody boats on the Maumee, and not a soul in the Northwest
+Territory was to regret Little Moccasin's aim.
+
+Leaving John Darknight where he had fallen, a prey to the vultures and
+the wolf, Girty turned away, and, with his still unconscious captive,
+hastened toward his cabin.
+
+The outlaw had achieved another triumph; but the avenger of blood was on
+his trail, and on a day memorable in the history of Ohio he was to
+expiate the crime which we have already witnessed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A THRILLING INITIATION.
+
+
+Oscar Parton did not resist when his captors drew him into their boat,
+which was paddled into the middle of the stream.
+
+He saw that resistance would prove futile, for his struggle with the
+dead warrior had wearied him.
+
+His captors were real red athletes, with great breadth of chest, and
+strong arms. They regarded him with much curiosity, and did not speak
+until the boat began to ascend the stream.
+
+"The Blacksnake's spy!" said one, half interrogatively, as he peered
+into the young man's face.
+
+His accent told Parton that he was a Shawnee.
+
+"I am not a spy," was the reply, "I have never trailed the Indian, with
+a rifle ready to take his life."
+
+The red men exchanged significant glances, and the youngest, a youth of
+eighteen, spoke:
+
+"Pale face is a Yengee."[C]
+
+    [C] Yankee or American.
+
+"I am an American," Oscar said, knowing that an attempt to conceal his
+national identity would result in no good to him. "I have lived at the
+mouth of the Swift River,[D] lifting no arm against the Indian."
+
+    [D] The Maumee. So called on account of its rapids.
+
+"But why is white man here?" asked the Shawnee.
+
+Then followed the narrative of the flight of the Merriweather family,
+and the story of Kate's abduction. The two Indians listened without
+interruption; but at certain stages of the narration they exchanged
+meaning looks.
+
+It was evident that they credited the story, for the young man told it
+in a plain, straightforward manner, embellishing it with no rhetoric.
+
+"White guide steal girl?" the young Indian--a Seneca--said, and the
+elder nodded his head in confirmation. "Him bad man. Decoys boats to the
+wrong side of river for the red man. Parquatoc no like him, for he makes
+war on women and children."
+
+For several moments the savages conversed together in whispers, and in
+the Indian tongue, of which the captive caught but few words which he
+understood. His fate appeared to be the subject of conversation, and he
+waited with much anxiety and impatience for the end of the council.
+
+Escape was not to be thought of, for his limbs were bound, and he would
+have sank beneath the waves like a stone if he had thrown himself from
+the boat.
+
+At last the dark heads separated, and the young settler looked into the
+Indian's eyes as if seeking the decision there before he should hear it
+from their tongues.
+
+But he was doomed to disappointment, for the red Arabs did not speak,
+though the one who had called himself Parquatoc guided the boat toward
+the shore.
+
+Oscar thought that the youth's eye had a kindly gleam, and tried to make
+himself believe that no murderous light was in the orbs of his
+companion.
+
+Parquatoc sent the boat to the bank with strong, rapid strokes, and it
+finally struck with a dull thud that made the light craft quiver. Then
+he severed Oscar's leg bonds, and the settler stood erect on the shore,
+ten miles below the scene of his capture.
+
+His thoughts were of Harvey Catlett, whom he had left so
+unceremoniously, and who might think that he had deserted him to hunt
+alone for the stolen girl.
+
+He did not quail before the uncertain fate that stared him in the face;
+but resolved to meet it, dread as it might be, like a man.
+
+The boat was drawn upon the bank, and lifted into the boughs of a huge
+tree, which told that it was not to kiss the waves again that night.
+
+The Shawnee deposited it there while the young Seneca guarded the
+settler. But such vigilance was useless, for Oscar had resolved to
+attempt no escape that did not offer the best signs of success.
+
+Having deposited the boat in the tree so well that none but the keenest
+of eyes could have found it, the eldest savage gave his companion a
+look, and the next moment a knife flashed in his hand.
+
+Oscar thought that his doom was near at hand, for Parquatoc stepped
+forward, his scarlet fingers encircling the buckhorn handle of the keen
+blade. But though the youth's eyes flashed and his well-knit figure
+quivered, there was no gleam of murder in his eyes.
+
+The Shawnee looked on without a sign of interference.
+
+"The pale face has said that he does not hate the Indian!" the youth
+said.
+
+"Why should I? He has never done me harm."
+
+"But he kills the whites, and now the Blacksnakes come among his wigwams
+with rifle and torch."
+
+"True; but the Blacksnake, as you call our great soldier, would not be
+marching into this country if the bad whites had not stirred up the
+tribes by lies and rum."
+
+The young settler spoke with great boldness, looking straight into the
+eyes of the pair.
+
+"The pale face hates the king's men and the renegades?"
+
+"He does."
+
+There was a moment's silence.
+
+"Does he hate the White Whirlwind?"
+
+"He hates Jim Girty with all his heart!"
+
+The Shawnee nodded to Parquatoc with manifest satisfaction.
+
+"Then let the pale man bare his breast."
+
+For the first time since the landing, a pallor swept over Oscar Parton's
+face.
+
+If the savages were friends to the Girtys, and there were few Indians
+who would not have followed them to death, his replies had fated him to
+die, and the command to bare his breast seemed to settle the question of
+his life.
+
+He hesitated, but not through fear.
+
+"Is the white man afraid?" asked the boy-warrior with a sneer.
+
+"No!" was the quick reply, and the next instant the settler's hands were
+lifted to obey the command; but the deer thongs that bound them
+prevented him.
+
+Parquatoc smiled, and cut the bonds.
+
+Then Oscar tore his jacket open, and exposed his flesh to the Indian's
+gaze.
+
+"The white man hates the British and the white renegades. He must join
+our band."
+
+Then while the last word still quivered the speaker's lips, the knife
+flashed across his breast and a spurt of blood told that it had left a
+horrid trail behind. The youth did not fall, but remained erect, while
+the Indians regarded the work of the blade with satisfaction.
+
+"Listen," said Parquatoc, laying his hand on Oscar's shoulder and
+looking straight into his eyes. "You are one of us now and forever.
+There was a council the other dark (night) in the long hollow. The White
+Whirlwind came and raised his voice for war. Many chiefs followed him;
+but there were many more who were afraid to lift their voices for peace.
+The Indian can't fight the Blacksnake. He will sweep them from his path
+as the hurricane sweeps the leaves from the trees. Parquatin, our
+brother, rose and spoke for peace. He told the council that war meant
+starving squaws, desolated maize fields, and gameless hunting grounds to
+the Indian. He called White Whirlwind a bad man, who would desert the
+red man to trail a white girl through the forest. It was a talk that
+made the Whirlwind mad; and there in the council before the assembled
+braves of seven nations, he drove his tomahawk into our brother's brain.
+We have raised our hands to the Manitou like the white men do when they
+want to make their words strong, and said that we hate the palefaces who
+have lied the Indian into the fight. We strike at the renegade; we trail
+the White Whirlwind; and he shall die for the blow which he struck at
+the council in the long hollow. White man, you are one of us now. You
+carry the sign of the brotherhood. Wherever you go you will find red
+brethren. No other paleface belongs to us. In danger, show the mark; our
+people are many, and after the next great battle, the cold white faces
+among the tribes will not be few. You are free; but if you go with us we
+will step upon the trail of the white rose stolen from you."
+
+To the young warrior's speech, uttered in that eloquence which now and
+then adorns the pages of savage history, Oscar Parton listened with
+wonderment and strange emotions. It is true that Parquatoc's words, as
+he advanced, prepared him for the finale, but his transition from
+thoughts of doom to freedom was yet swift and startling. He found
+himself initiated into a cabal of Indians who had sworn to make war
+against certain white people--himself the sole white member of the
+organization.
+
+There was a something about the young Parquatoc that made the settler
+admire him; and now that he knew that Jim Girty had basely slain his
+brother, he saw a motive for the boy-warrior's intense hatred.
+
+He resolved to cultivate his friendship; but he did not know how soon
+the bonds sealed that night were to be broken.
+
+"Come!" said Parquatoc, breaking in upon his thoughts. "The light is not
+very far away, and we must not be here when the white arrows fall upon
+the river."
+
+"But white man no gun," said the Shawnee, speaking for the first time
+since the landing.
+
+"Never mind; gun come soon enough," was the Seneca's reply.
+
+A moment later the tree and concealed boat were left behind, and the
+trio hurried from the river.
+
+Oscar Parton walked beside the boy, never dreaming of escape, though his
+freedom had been restored, for his new brethren had promised to aid him
+in his search for Kate.
+
+He was thinking about his thrilling initiation, and wondering what would
+come of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A LOVERS' MEETING.
+
+
+The reader will recollect that we left Harvey Catlett, the young scout,
+searching for John Darknight's trail on the banks of the Maumee. We will
+now return to him.
+
+For a long time the youth prosecuted his search with vigor, confident
+that he would soon be enabled to strike the trail and start in pursuit
+of the treacherous guide, whose hands had, he doubted not, taken Kate
+Merriweather from the camp. But the minutes passed without bringing him
+success, and he at last began to fear that the abductor had not landed
+at any point opposite the bivouac.
+
+With this idea gaining strength in his mind, he resolved to rejoin his
+companion and suggest new operations. But Oscar Parton did not respond
+to his oft-repeated signals, and the young scout sought him in turn
+until the gray streaks of light announced the dawn of another day. He
+did not hear the boat that drifted past him in the night, nor catch a
+sound of the struggle between the living and the dead which was taking
+place on board.
+
+He was inclined to charge Oscar Parton with desertion, attributing it to
+the young man's zeal for Kate's welfare, for whom he--Oscar--preferred
+perhaps to hunt alone.
+
+"Well, let him go!" Catlett said at last, standing on the shore with the
+daylight in his face. "If he does not like to trail with me, I am sure
+that I will not lift a hand against him. He might have been a stumbling
+block, any way, and on the whole I am not sorry that he has rid me of
+himself."
+
+Speaking thus--as the reader knows, unjustly--of Oscar Parton, the young
+scout started up the river. A few steps brought him to a rifle which lay
+on the ground. A glance told him that it belonged to the man whom he had
+just charged with desertion; but now he regretted his words. The
+discovery of the weapon told him that Parton was in trouble.
+
+His keen eyes, used to the woods and their trails, could not show him
+any signs of a struggle, for the tide had removed the stranding place of
+the canoe, and after a long and unsuccessful search, Catlett looked
+mystified. He looked at the rifle, but it told no story of its owner's
+mishaps; it lay in his hands dumb--provokingly so.
+
+"It beats me!" were the only audible words that escaped him, after a
+long silence of study and conjecture.
+
+Then he thrust the weapon into the hollow of a tree near by, and started
+into the forest.
+
+He had another mystery to solve besides Kate Merriweather's
+abduction--Oscar Parton's whereabouts. He felt assured, however, that
+the settler's daughter had fallen into Darknight's hands, and it was
+known to him that the guide and James Girty were staunch friends.
+
+It was toward the renegade's cabin, ten miles distant, that the scout
+hastened. He examined the ground over which he walked, and the light
+growing stronger, at last penetrated the forest.
+
+The morning was not far advanced when a young man paused suddenly in a
+glen where the trees had felt the fury of a hurricane, and looked into
+the face of a person whose clothes were damp with still glistening dew.
+
+The cold white face was upturned to the blue sky, and in the eyes was
+the ghastly stare of the dead. Beside the body lay a dark-stocked rifle
+clutched tightly by a rigid right hand. Under the left ear was a mass of
+clotted blood, which proclaimed the gateway of the bullet of death.
+
+"John Darknight!" exclaimed Harvey Catlett, stooping down to examine the
+dead. "Little did I think that your trail would end so suddenly, and so
+fatally to you. Now a new mystery begins. Where is the girl?"
+
+An examination of the glen told the trailer that several persons besides
+the unfortunate guide had been there, and he was examining a track so
+peculiar as to attract attention, when a noise greeted his ears.
+
+Raising his head and looking over his shoulder, he saw standing not far
+away the person of all others whom he would meet at that hour--Little
+Moccasin.
+
+There was a smile on her face as she came forward and submitted to the
+kiss which he imprinted on her cheek.
+
+"They have been talking hard of you, girl, in the camp over the river,"
+Harvey said. "They accuse you of deserting them."
+
+"Areotha go to follow him!" she said, and her glance wandered to the
+dead man in the dewy grass. "But he eluded her, and for a long time she
+saw him not."
+
+"And too late you have found him. He is there."
+
+"Areotha saw him fall with his face to the stars. He lay so still, and
+never groaned in his throat."
+
+The young scout looked into the fair face, flushed with triumph.
+
+"Did you do it, girl?"
+
+"Areotha shot him when he was taking the white girl through the forest."
+
+Harvey Catlett started.
+
+"Then you rescued Kate!" he cried.
+
+The girl shook her head.
+
+"White girl taken from Areotha," was her answer. "Will Fair Face
+listen?"
+
+"I will."
+
+In simple language Little Moccasin detailed her trailing of John
+Darknight and his captive through the forest, and how in the
+hurricane-swept glen she had put an end to his crimes with a bullet.
+Then, of course, followed the account of James Girty's interference, and
+his subsequent flight with the settler's daughter.
+
+The scout listened without interrupting her.
+
+"The new trail begins here," he said, addressing the beautiful creature.
+"There is a ball in my rifle that may rid the Northwest Territory of its
+incarnate curse."
+
+"No, no!" cried Little Moccasin, and her hand fell on his arm. "If Fair
+Face kills the Whirlwind, he will never tell."
+
+Catlett looked into the forest beauty's eyes as a puzzled expression
+settled upon his face.
+
+"Never--never tell!" repeated the girl, mystifying him the more.
+
+"Never tell what, Moccasin?" exclaimed the scout, as he put his arm
+about her and drew her near him.
+
+"He knows Areotha's true father."
+
+"No!"
+
+"He said so last night in his own cabin door, and when he said he would
+not tell, Areotha raised her rifle; but he told her to shoot, and never,
+never know, and--she let the rifle fall. My father knows, for when the
+wound-fever was upon him he said strange things, and made me go away
+when I came near."
+
+Catlett was silent, busy with his thoughts, and when he started he saw
+Areotha's eyes fixed upon him.
+
+"The brute may know," he said. "I wish I could wrest the secret from
+him."
+
+"Fair Face will not kill him, then?" said the girl, pleading for the
+life of the scourge of the settlements. "When the right time comes he
+will tell."
+
+"That time, in his opinion, will never come. When Jim Girty hates, he
+hates forever."
+
+"But will Fair Face spare him?"
+
+"I would not spare the wolf that has trailed me for years, nor would I
+be lenient with the hound that has spilled the blood of women and their
+little ones. Wolf and hound is this very man whom you have called father
+these many years."
+
+"He is very bad!" the girl said, dropping her eyes. "_But he knows!_"
+
+"Then for your sake I will not slay him, save in self defense. Otherwise
+on sight would I shoot the human blood-hound."
+
+Before Harvey Catlett had ceased to speak a pair of arms encircled his
+neck, and he felt hot kisses on his face.
+
+Areotha had conquered him.
+
+"We part here," he said, gently releasing himself.
+
+"Does Fair Face go to trail the Whirlwind?"
+
+"I go to wrench Kate Merriweather from his grasp. This is my sole
+mission; then back to Mad Anthony, to fight in the battle near at hand."
+
+"And Areotha?"
+
+"Go to the camp over the river, and tell Wolf Cap what I have done."
+
+A pallor of fear and distrust came over the girl's face.
+
+"He hates Areotha, and the young men do not like her."
+
+"Do not fear the tall hunter now," Harvey said.
+
+"Does he like Areotha?" she cried, brightening up. "She often dreams
+about him, but a shadow comes between us, and in his place is the
+Whirlwind and his home."
+
+"You need not fear him, though he may act strangely sometimes. He will
+protect you from the two young men of the party. You may be of
+assistance to the fugitives. Stay with them until I come. Go, little
+one. God bless you."
+
+They parted in the glen, and Harvey Catlett did not stir until the wood
+witch had vanished from his sight.
+
+"I believe it stronger than ever, now," he said. "I hope it may be so.
+Jim Girty, I have virtually sworn to spare your life--for on this trail
+we are bound to meet--and there is but one woman in the world who could
+have made me promise."
+
+A moment later the storm swept glen was not tenanted save by the man who
+would never, never leave it.
+
+Harvey Catlett, with tightened belt and ready rifle, had stepped upon a
+new trail, destined to be fraught with strange adventures.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+IN GIRTY'S CABIN.
+
+
+Kate Merriweather was quite exhausted when the renegade's forest home
+was reached.
+
+Her strange abduction, rescue and recapture had told upon her nature,
+and she crossed Girty's threshold with a sigh of despair which did not
+escape her companion's notice.
+
+"Oh, you will not find Jim Girty's home so bad as your imagination has
+pictured it," he said with a smile. "A British officer at Fort Miami
+tells about a place that had over its door the words, 'who enters here
+leaves hope behind;' but that isn't my home."
+
+Kate shuddered at his heartless levity, which he applauded with a coarse
+laugh.
+
+She felt that the legend that blazed over the portals of Dante's hell
+might with propriety have been inscribed above Girty's door.
+
+She felt like abandoning hope, and resolved not to plead with the brute
+into whose hands she had fallen.
+
+But she determined to protect herself from insult while under his roof.
+
+Of the coarse meal which the renegade sat before her Kate partook, for
+fatigue had rendered her hungry, and Girty eyed her triumphantly while
+she ate.
+
+The breakfast was at last concluded, and Girty began to remove the
+remains of the matutinal meal.
+
+While engaged in this duty a quick step alarmed him, and a lithe young
+Indian appeared in the door-way.
+
+Girty stepped forward with a smile of recognition, for the youth was
+clad in the scanty costume of a runner, and the message which he bore
+was speedily delivered.
+
+Buckhougahelas, the great sachem, and the confederate chiefs were about
+to advance upon Wayne, and requested the White Whirlwind's presence.
+
+During the delivery of the dispatch an uneasiness was visible in Girty's
+face, which would not have escaped the notice of an older warrior. It
+was evident that he did not expect the news at that hour.
+
+"What says the Whirlwind?"
+
+"I will come. Before the end of another sleep I will be with my braves."
+
+The runner bowed, and snatching a piece of venison from the rough table,
+he bounded away, eating as he ran.
+
+"A pretty fix! a pretty fix!" muttered the renegade to himself, turning
+from the door and glancing at his captive. "I am one of them as much as
+Mataquan, the runner. I have helped on the war; I have stirred up the
+nations; I have made them mad and bloodthirsty. Shall I desert them now,
+because I have a woman on my hands? If I remained from the fight my life
+would not be worth a leaf, for the survivors would hunt me down."
+
+He stepped to the table with the last word on his lips, and his hand was
+about to continue his work, when the door which he had closed was burst
+open and two Indians leaped into the room.
+
+There were but few savages whom the renegade had reason to dread, for
+was he not virtually an Indian, though white-skinned and English? But he
+turned quickly upon the intruders, and started back when he saw their
+faces.
+
+They were Parquatoc, and Sackadac, the Shawnee; the ring leaders of the
+cabal against his life!
+
+James Girty, ever quick to act in the face of danger, sprang to his
+rifle; but before his hand could seize the trusty weapon, the Seneca
+youth bounded upon him and bore him to the cabin wall.
+
+It was the work of a moment, and no giant could have withstood the
+terrible spring.
+
+The outlaw recovered in an instant, and his great strength would have
+released him from Parquatoc's power if the Shawnee had not flown to his
+comrade's aid. Girty was in the hands of two men who had sworn to rid
+the world of his detestable shape.
+
+He was disarmed in a moment, and found himself at the mercy of his foes,
+who confronted him with weapons, eager to drink his blood.
+
+"Call white hunter," said the Seneca to his companion, and Sackadac went
+to the door.
+
+At a signal from his lips a third party joined the Indians, and as he
+crossed the threshold a cry of joy was heard, and Kate Merriweather
+leaped forward to fall into his arms. It was her lover, Oscar Parton.
+
+Girty ground his teeth as he witnessed the meeting, and fixed his eyes
+upon his captors.
+
+"The blood of Parquatin is on the Whirlwind's knife!" said the Seneca.
+"He cut his heart because he dared to talk for peace."
+
+"Not for that!" grated the renegade. "He called me coward, and no man
+calls me that and lives."
+
+"The Whirlwind is a coward!" flashed the youth! "He kills a boy when he
+stands before him unarmed. Parquatin was but a boy; he was wearing his
+first eagle feathers, and he had never made love to a woman."
+
+"And he never will!" said Girty with sarcasm which cut its way to the
+Indian brother's heart.
+
+Parquatoc raised his rifle with a meaning glance at the Shawnee, and
+stepped toward the door.
+
+"The Whirlwind has killed his last man!" the youth resumed, as the
+barrel crept up to a level with the renegade's breast. "He will never
+press the grass trails again with his moccasins, and the white women
+will sleep in peace with their papooses at their side. Parquatin's blood
+must flow over the Whirlwind's; the new moon must smile upon his
+carcass."
+
+"Shoot and be done with it!" Girty said, without a quiver of the
+muscles. "I am in your power, and as every man can't live over the time
+which has been marked out for him, I am not going to play the baby
+here."
+
+They say that murderers are cowards. A greater murderer than James Girty
+never cursed the early west; but not a single instance of cowardice
+stands against his record. He looked into Parquatoc's rifle without
+fear, and his countenance did not change when the Indian's cheek dropped
+upon the stock.
+
+It was a moment fraught with the wildest interest, and in the silence
+the beating of hearts was heard.
+
+But that tableau was rudely broken, and that by a white man who suddenly
+threw himself into the cabin and pushed the rifle of the Seneca aside.
+
+Every eye was turned upon him, and the tomahawks of the Indians leaped
+from their belts.
+
+"I hate that man with all my heart," the new comer cried, addressing the
+Indians as he pointed to the renegade, surprised with the rest. "I
+wouldn't spare his life but for a little while. He knows something which
+I must know; then my red brother's rifle may send the bullet to his
+heart."
+
+Girty looked, stared into the speaker's face.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked before the Indian could reply.
+
+"My name is Catlett."
+
+"A spy of Wayne's?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The savages exchanged looks, and Parquatoc spoke:
+
+"The Blacksnake's spy has no right to step between Parquatoc and his
+captive," he said.
+
+"No!" hissed the Shawnee.
+
+"Stand aside!" continued the Seneca, menacingly.
+
+But Harvey Catlett did not stir.
+
+The Indians advanced upon him.
+
+"Hold!" cried Oscar Parton. "He will join us! He will wear the mark
+which you gave me."
+
+"No white spy shall wear it!" was the reply.
+
+Face to face with the two savages stood Wayne's young scout, composed
+and unyielding. He intended to kill the first savage who raised a hand
+against him.
+
+But all at once James Girty moved from the wall. With one of his
+powerful bounds, he hurled himself upon the spy, whom he sent reeling
+against Parquatoc, and the next moment he was running for life through
+the forest.
+
+It was in vain that Oscar Parton and the Shawnee, the first to recover,
+tried to cover him with their rifles. The renegade was fleet of foot,
+and a yell announced his escape and future revenge.
+
+James Girty was at large again, but captiveless; for Kate Merriweather
+had fallen into hands that would not desert her.
+
+Harvey Catlett turned to the Indians when he had recovered his
+equilibrium. He told then why he wished to spare Girty's life--for the
+secret of Little Moccasin's parentage--and when he had finished,
+Parquatoc said:
+
+"The Blacksnake's spy must join us. All who hate the White Whirlwind
+must wear the mark."
+
+At Oscar's solicitation the young spy consented, and Parquatoc's knife
+cut the sign of the banded brotherhood on his breast.
+
+"Back to the white people with their child!" the Seneca said. "The big
+fight is coming on."
+
+They parted there--red and white--and Kate once more turned her face
+toward her relatives.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE FOREST WHIPPING POST.
+
+
+The Merriweather family did not make rapid progress toward Wayne after
+Kate's abduction. A gloom had settled over the little band of fugitives,
+and they desired to remain near the spot which had been so fatal to one
+of their number.
+
+A degree of safety returned with Wolf Cap's accession to their numbers,
+and the tall borderman did not cease to assure them that Harvey Catlett
+was an experienced scout. He firmly believed that he would restore Kate
+to their arms, and this quieted the parents and made them feel hopeful.
+
+"Think of my loss," the hunter would say, when the parents murmured at
+the theft of their child. "Think of a man coming home and finding his
+cabin in ashes, and the bones of his family among them. I had one of the
+best wives in the world, and a little girl who was just beginning to
+call me 'papa.'"
+
+"You have had revenge?" said Abel Merriweather.
+
+"Ask the woods, the streams, and the Indian villages that lie between
+the Ohio and the Maumee if I have not glutted my thirst for vengeance.
+But it has not restored my family. I have killed, but the blows that I
+have dealt did not give back my child's kiss, my wife's embrace. No;
+there is no satisfaction in vengeance. Man ought to leave his wrongs to
+God, who punishes the guilty in the end."
+
+Thus Wolf Cap often talked to Abel Merriweather and his family, and
+afterward he would relapse into a silence from which no one attempted to
+draw him. He would stand for hours in a reverie like a harmless lunatic,
+and more than once the sun which found him in this state at the
+meridian, saw him there at its setting.
+
+He was the guide. Every foot of the Maumee wood was known to him, and
+with his eye turned to the west, he slowly but surely led the fugitives
+in the direction of Wayne's camp.
+
+The sun was creeping zenithward one warm morning, when a boat left the
+northern shore of the Maumee and pushed out into the stream. Its single
+occupant was a girlish person whose face was very lovely, and whose
+browned hands seemed accustomed to the use of paddles.
+
+She steered for the opposite bank, and despite the rapids, which
+threatened at times to capsize the frail craft, she reached her
+destination. With an agile bound she sprang upon shore, and made the
+canoe fast to a clump of bushes. Then she took a rifle from the bottom
+of the boat, and looked into the forest that trended to the bank which
+she had gained.
+
+It was Little Moccasin.
+
+After satisfying herself that no person had observed her movements, she
+moved from the shore; but a minute later the clicking of gun locks
+brought her to a halt, and she heard a voice that startled her.
+
+"Don't lift your gun, or we'll drop you in your tracks."
+
+Then the girl saw the speaker, for he had slipped from behind a tree,
+and beside him stood a companion.
+
+With a cry of recognition which made Little Moccasin's eyes sparkle with
+delight, she started toward the twain, whose faces were darkened by
+scowls.
+
+"Areotha is glad to meet her brothers," she said. "Fair Face has sent
+her----"
+
+"No fixed up story!" interrupted one of the whites, who was Carl
+Merriweather; his companion was George Darling.
+
+"We won't listen to you," said the latter. "We've seen enough of your
+sleek-tongued treachery, and by Jove, we're going to put an end to it."
+
+The girl's face grew pale.
+
+"Will the white men listen to Areotha?"
+
+"No; and beside, we wouldn't believe you if we did!" said Carl. "Of
+course you were in league with that rascally guide, and he stole my
+sister. Do you know what we ought to do with you? Why, we would be
+serving you right if we whipped you to death right here. God knows how
+many boats of our people you have decoyed into the hands of the Indians.
+A female renegade is the meanest thing on earth."
+
+"Areotha will talk," said the girl, who had waited with impatience for
+the young Hotspur to finish. "The hot-headed young men may shut their
+ears; but the Manitou will listen. He never turns away from the sound of
+his people's voice."
+
+"Go on, then," said Darling. "Spit out the pretty story you have cooked
+up."
+
+Little Moccasin gave the speaker a glance of hatred, and then said in
+her silvery tone:
+
+"Areotha comes from the Blacksnake's spy. The guide is dead; he sleeps
+where the storm tore down the trees. Fair Face says that he will soon
+bring the white girl back to her people!"
+
+"And he sent you here to say this?" said Carl Merriweather, in a tone
+which told that he did not believe a word which had fallen from the
+girl's lips.
+
+"He told Areotha to tell the mother and the father this, that their eyes
+might get bright again."
+
+"It is a pretty story, but it don't go down," Carl said.
+
+The black eyes flashed again.
+
+"You might as well have told us that Kate was in the camp now," said
+George Darling.
+
+"That is so!"
+
+"We believe that you are the biggest mischief-maker in these parts. Who
+knows how many young men you have decoyed to their doom by your smiles.
+And now you have another in your net--a brave young fellow, but blind
+enough to follow your infernal witchery to his death. Come, lay your
+rifle down; we want to deal with you as you deserve."
+
+"If we let you off with a whole skin you may thank our mercy," said Carl
+with a smile.
+
+Little Moccasin, finding herself completely in the power of the young
+men, hesitated a moment, and then dropping her rifle, surrendered
+herself. There was no pity in her captor's eyes, and her pale face made
+them laugh outright.
+
+"A little whipping--that is all!" said George Darling, fiendishly, as he
+seized the girl's arm and led her to a tree that stood near by.
+
+While Carl guarded her, his companion stripped a lynn tree of its bark
+covering, which he converted into ropes, and returned to the selected
+tree.
+
+Blushing at the purposed indignity, the girl permitted herself to be
+lashed to the tree--her cheek against the bark--but with pressed lips
+and flashing eyes.
+
+This operation performed, a number of keen withes were selected, and
+armed with several bundles which had been converted into whips as
+cutting as the Russian knout, the gallant young bordermen approached
+their captive.
+
+"Now my forest lady," said Darling, sarcastically, "we'll give you a
+dressing that will not be forgotten on your dying day. Come, now,
+confess that you are a forest witch in league with Jim Girty and his
+minions, red and white."
+
+"The Manitou knows that Areotha never lifted a hand against the American
+people."
+
+"Lying to the last," said Carl. "Ten extra licks for that."
+
+"Twenty of them," answered Darling, eager to deal the first blow.
+
+"We should have taken off her jacket."
+
+"No, the sticks will cut through it like a razor."
+
+"Then let her have the whipping, George. When your arm tires, I will
+continue the work."
+
+George Darling selected the longest bundle of withes, and stepped back
+for a terrible sweeping blow. The girl gritted her teeth and waited. Her
+white face seemed frozen against the tree.
+
+With demoniac pleasure in his eye, the young man raised the whip and
+swung his arm back for the blow. Carl Merriweather did not cease to
+watch him.
+
+The second of silence that followed was suddenly broken, but not by the
+sound of the sticks on Little Moccasin's back.
+
+There came a stern voice from the right:
+
+"Stop! I'll kill the rascal that touches that girl!"
+
+George Darling started, and the knout fell from his hand. There were
+more than one white face beneath the tree.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!" said the same voice, and the
+would-be whippers saw Wolf Cap advancing. "It is a pretty business for
+two young men to be engaged in--whipping a girl in the woods. By hokey!
+I ought to take the whips and wear them out on your backs."
+
+The youths were too astonished to reply. They trembled like criminals
+before the tall spy, and did not stir until he had cut the girl's bonds
+and released her.
+
+"Go back to the camp!" he commanded. "Or hold! Apologize to this
+creature. Down on your knees, or by the great horn spoon, I'll cut your
+faces into strings with your own whips."
+
+The tall man was in a tempest of passion, and, frightened almost out of
+their wits, the young men dropped upon the ground and craved forgiveness
+of the creature whom they had so grossly insulted.
+
+"Areotha cannot hate the Americans," she said softly. "She will forget
+the bark and the whips."
+
+Sullen and abashed, Carl Merriweather and his companion slunk away,
+leaving Wolf Cap and Little Moccasin at the tree.
+
+For a long time the scout and spy looked into the girl's eyes, and all
+at once he covered his face with his hands and groaned.
+
+"Every time I see her I think of that terrible night," he said.
+
+"What does the hunter say?" said the girl, catching his words but
+indistinctly, for they were spoken through his great hard hands.
+
+"Nothing," Wolf Cap answered, starting at the sound of her voice.
+"Nothing; don't speak to me! You make me think of a voice that I heard
+when I was a happy man."
+
+As he uttered the last word, he staggered back with great emotion, and
+saw Little Moccasin staring strangely into his face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE BROTHERS' LAST INTERVIEW.
+
+
+Meanwhile Wayne was advancing with that caution and intrepidity which
+had rendered him famous in wars prior to the one in which he was then
+engaged. His spies brought him hourly reports of the movements of the
+enemy, and he knew where the decisive conflict would be fought.
+
+The allied tribes had selected as their battle ground the forest of
+Presqu'-Isle, a place on the left bank of the Maumee, and almost within
+reach of the guns of the British Fort Miami.
+
+During the night preceding the battle, the chiefs of the different
+nations assembled in council, and it was proposed by some to go up and
+attack Wayne in his encampment. The proposition was opposed, and the
+council did not determine to attack him that night!
+
+A great deal of responsibility rested upon this nocturnal council, at
+which the Girtys were present. Simon did not say much in the council,
+but held private talks with the prominent chiefs. He approved the plan
+of attacking the Americans in their camp, and his plan was ably seconded
+by Little Turtle and others.
+
+The fate of the tribes of the Northwestern Territory hung upon the
+decision of the council.
+
+"We have beaten the enemy twice under separate commanders,"[E] said the
+Turtle in the council. "We cannot expect the same good fortune always to
+attend us."
+
+    [E] Harmar and St. Clair.
+
+"The Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps. The night and
+day are alike to him, and during all the time he has been marching upon
+our villages, notwithstanding the wakefulness of our young men, we have
+not been able to surprise him. Think well of it. There is something
+whispers to me that it would be prudent to listen to his offers of
+peace."[F]
+
+    [F] Historical.
+
+To this speech James Girty was the first to reply. His voice was for war
+to the knife. He scouted at ideas of peace, when the seven tribes had
+sworn to stand side by side and oppose the Americans. He accused of
+cowardice all who talked of submission, and cast scornful glances at his
+brother Simon and the Turtle. Clad in the war dress which he usually
+wore on such occasions, and with the fitful flashes of the council fire
+in his face, he seemed a very demon of war and blood.
+
+His voice went afar into the night, and startled the warriors who had
+been forbidden to attend the council.
+
+"We will surely fight the Blacksnake, for the Whirlwind is talking,"
+they said with delight.
+
+It was midnight when the council broke up, its participants in no good
+humor, for the Turtle's speech had sown much dissension in the Indian
+ranks, and that night many a red man saved his life by deserting the
+common cause.
+
+It was decided to fight Wayne at Presqu'-Isle.
+
+After the adjournment of the council the several chiefs hurried to their
+respective legions to prepare for the conflict. James Girty wended his
+way toward the Miami camp. He was ill at ease, and ever and anon his
+hands closed and opened spasmodically, and he muttered as he went along:
+
+"Is he tired of war? Is he going to turn gentleman? He is a coward! He
+is not worthy the name of Girty."
+
+These words fell in audible tones from the renegade's lips. They were
+hissed from a heart which was a very cauldron of anger.
+
+"James?"
+
+At the sound of his name the outlaw stopped, and turning, recognized the
+speaker.
+
+"I am tired of war; but I am not a coward."
+
+The renegade brothers stood face to face in the forest.
+
+For a moment neither spoke. They stood apart, as if each had determined
+not to approach the other.
+
+"You are for peace, Simon," James said.
+
+"I would stay the slaughter that will follow our meeting with Wayne,"
+was the reply.
+
+Simon Girty trying to prevent the effusion of blood? It seemed one of
+the impossibilities of his nature.
+
+A grim smile passed over the Whirlwind's face.
+
+"Then fly to-night," he said bitterly. "Go to the great cities and
+exchange your bloody hatchet for the priests' robes of religion. I am
+for war! No man shall ever say that Jim Girty turned from a chance to
+shed American blood. We are brothers. Simon, is it true that you are
+tired of slaughter?"
+
+"I am. We have been devils long enough, James."
+
+"When did you experience this wonderful change?"
+
+The speaker's sarcasm made the solitary listener bite his lip.
+
+"Do you know who is with Wayne?" he said.
+
+"Two thousand men that long to drink my blood."
+
+"_He_ is there--_they_ are there!"
+
+"Ha?"
+
+"Abner Stark reached Wayne not long since. He brought a family of
+fugitives into camp. That man has been hunting you ever since you
+murdered his family in Kentucky. Fifty more avengers of desolated homes
+are with Wayne, and there are people in our own ranks who hate you. The
+blood of Parquatin will be avenged."
+
+For a moment James Girty looked searchingly into Simon's face.
+
+"Parquatin!" he said. "Simon, his blood is on your hands. You put him up
+to what he did in the council. I should have spared the boy, and killed
+you. Oh, what a brother you have been to me! And now with fiendish
+delight you tell me that I will fall to-morrow. Let it come! No man
+shall say that I ever played the coward. Go your way. I am ashamed to
+know that I have a brother whose name is Simon!"
+
+The last word still quivered the outlaw's lips as he turned on his heel
+and deliberately walked away.
+
+Simon Girty watched him until the ghostly shadows of the trees hid him
+from sight, and said, as he turned toward the Indian camp:
+
+"Simon Girty will be brotherless to-morrow night."
+
+There was a tinge of regret in his tone, for despite their hates and
+jealousies, their inhumanity to one another, the renegade brothers were
+not devoid of every spark of brotherly affection.
+
+And the night wore on, and at last the day came. It was the bloody and
+disastrous twentieth of August, 1794.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+FIELD OF THE FALLEN TIMBERS.
+
+
+We return to other characters of our romance in order to glance at their
+adventures from our last dealings with them up to the night before the
+great fight for supremacy on the shores of the Maumee.
+
+We left Kate Merriweather returning to her kindred with Harvey Catlett
+and her lover after her rescue in the cabin of James Girty.
+
+The restoration was effected without incident worthy of record, and the
+girl at last found herself in her mother's arms.
+
+The journey was then resumed, and the entire party, with the exception
+of Little Moccasin, who mysteriously returned to the forest, reached Mad
+Anthony's camp.
+
+It may well be believed that Abel Merriweather breathed free again when
+he found his little family behind the bayonets of the American army, and
+he hastened to enroll himself among the ranks of bordermen led by Wells
+and the Choctaw chief Hummingbird.
+
+In this legion were also found Oscar Parton, George Darling, and little,
+but fearless Carl Merriweather. Harvey Catlett was unattached, and Wolf
+Cap given the liberty of the field.
+
+Around and upon the Hill of Presqu'-Isle the Indian forces had posted
+themselves, having their left secured by the river, and their front by a
+kind of breastwork of fallen timbers which rendered it impracticable for
+cavalry to advance. It was a position admirably chosen, but useless, as
+history tells.
+
+Impatiently the allied tribes awaited the American army. The chiefs,
+with few exceptions, were confident, for had they not beaten Harmar and
+St. Clair?
+
+The Girtys had not shirked the battle, but there was a restlessness
+about Simon's movements that attracted attention. James, on the
+contrary, was firm and boastful. Wherever he went he encouraged the
+Indians to stand firm, promising them victory and its tempting spoils.
+But there were keen eyes fixed upon him.
+
+In the scarlet ranks were many who carried a long scar on their
+breasts--the mark of the brotherhood to whom Parquatin's blood cried for
+vengeance.
+
+In two splendid columns, with trailed arms, Wayne's army advanced upon
+the savages. A terrible fire greeted the onslaught, and the General soon
+discovered that the enemy were in full force and endeavoring, with some
+show of success, to turn his left flank. Then came the tug of war, and
+for hours the carnival of battle raged among the fallen timbers and
+around the base of the hill.
+
+"At last! look Harvey!"
+
+Wolf Cap pointed through an opening, and Harvey Catlett, the spy, saw
+the sight to which his attention was called.
+
+There, in a little space made by the death of a forest tree, stood a man
+whose face was begrimed with powder. His half savage uniform was torn
+and blackened by the battle, and he seemed debating whether to fly or
+plunge again into the fight.
+
+"It is he!" said the young spy, looking up into Wolf Cap's face. "It is
+Jim Girty."
+
+"The man who darkened all my life!" was the hissed reply. "For years I
+have hunted him. Now he is mine!"
+
+Quick to the speaker's shoulder leaped the deadly rifle, and his cheek
+dropped upon the stock for aim.
+
+Harvey Catlett watched the renegade, unconscious of his swiftly
+approaching doom.
+
+All at once James Girty bounded into the air, and with a death cry that
+sounded above the roar of battle, fell on his face, and stretched his
+brawny arms in the agony of death.
+
+Wolf Cap lowered his rifle and wheeled upon the spy.
+
+"Did you shoot?" he cried.
+
+"No."
+
+"Then who did? Some one has cheated me of my revenge!"
+
+As he spoke, he glanced to the right and saw a young Indian reloading
+his rifle.
+
+"It is Parquatoc!" said Harvey Catlett.
+
+With a maddened cry the tall hunter sprang forward; but the Seneca youth
+eluded him, and disappeared in the twinkling of an eye.
+
+"Come! The battle rolls towards the British fort!" the young spy said,
+rousing Wolf Cap, who had relapsed into one of his singular reveries.
+
+"Yes, yes; we will go. But let us see whether he is dead."
+
+The twain hurried to the spot where James Girty had fallen. Wolf Cap
+turned him over, and saw the eyes start at sight of him.
+
+"The butcherer still lives!" the trailer said, as his hand grasped the
+handle of his tomahawk. "Harvey, I can yet revenge the murdered ones."
+
+But the youth's hand fell restrainingly on Wolf Cap's arm.
+
+"No. He is dying, Abner. Let us keep our hands in this hour. Get down
+and hear what he says."
+
+The two knelt beside the dreaded scourge of the Northwest, powerless now
+to harm a babe. Words were falling from his lips, and his eyes remained
+fixed upon Abner Stark.
+
+"They did it!" he said. "It was a redskin's bullet, and Parquatoc's. No
+more battles for Jim Girty. Listen, Abner Stark, for I know you. You
+have hunted me a long time, to find me dying. Where is the girl?"
+
+Wolf Cap started, and glanced at the spy.
+
+"He talks about some girl, Harvey."
+
+"Is the girl here?" asked the outlaw in a louder voice. "No? Must I die
+without seeing her? Well, let it be so. Abner Stark, when she comes,
+take her in your arms and call her your child, for such she is. I saved
+her from Indian fury that night, and I have tried to be good to her, bad
+as I am. I thought I would never tell you this."
+
+"This is all true, Girty?" cried Stark, scarcely able to credit the
+revelation.
+
+"On the word of the dying, Abner Stark. Why should I lie now?"
+
+Then Wolf Cap raised his eyes towards heaven, and poured out the
+gratitude of a father's soul.
+
+When he looked again at the prostrate outlaw, it was to say:
+
+"I am glad I did not shoot you."
+
+Girty smiled, and tried to speak; but the effort proved a failure, and
+the head fell back.
+
+It was all over. The White Whirlwind was dead, and the flowers which his
+restless feet had pressed to earth, lifted their heads and smiled.
+
+"Come, Abner!" said Catlett.
+
+The hunter obeyed, but, as he rose, he caught sight of a rapidly
+approaching figure, and stood still.
+
+The next moment Little Moccasin came up, and Wolf Cap lifted her from
+the ground, and in his embrace covered her face with kisses.
+
+He held her there until the sound of battle died away, and when he
+released her, she glided to Harvey Catlett's side and put her hands in
+his.
+
+"Areotha is glad, Fair Face," she said, her eyes sparkling with joy.
+"The real father is found, and he will be happy until the Manitou sends
+for all of us."
+
+There, on the bloody battlefield of the Fallen Timbers, Wolf Cap had
+found his child. It was a reunion impossible to describe, but many a
+heart beat in unison with the father's in the bivouac that night.
+
+Of course, Little Moccasin left the woods and became Harvey Catlett's
+bride, while the backwoods preacher made Oscar Parton and the settler's
+daughter one.
+
+Thus, with Wayne's decisive victory over the allied tribes, end the
+trails which we have followed through the summer woods of the Maumee.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+TREED BY A BEAR.
+
+BY EBEN E. REXFORD.
+
+
+We were gathered around the fire at grandfather's, one winter evening,
+cracking butternuts and drinking cider, when one of the boys called out
+for a story, and proposed that grandfather should be the one to tell it.
+
+"Yes, do tell us a story; please," spoke up half a dozen voices; "you
+haven't told us a story in a long time, grandfather."
+
+"I don't believe I can think of anything new," said grandfather; "I told
+you all my stories a long time ago."
+
+"Tell us the one about your being treed by a bear," suggested the
+prospective hunter of the party; "you haven't told that to all of us."
+
+"Oh, yes, tell us that one," cried the children in chorus, and
+grandfather began:
+
+"When your grandmother and I moved into the country, it didn't look much
+as it does now. There were no clearings of more than three or four acres
+in extent, and the settlers were scattered here and there through the
+woods, two or three miles apart. I came on before your grandmother did,
+and put up a rough shanty of logs, with a bark roof, and a floor of
+split pieces of basswood. You may be sure of one thing, children, and
+that is, we didn't have things very nice and handy in those days; but we
+were just beginning, and we had to do the best we could, and what we
+couldn't help we had to put up with.
+
+"I built a little stable for our cow, which I left with your grandmother
+in the settlement where you find a city to-day, until I got ready to
+move my family and all my earthly possessions into the woods where I was
+making my new home. I cleared off a little patch of ground and got it
+ready for a garden, and then went after your grandmother and our
+household goods.
+
+"It was a two days' drive to this place from the settlement then. I
+hired a man to bring your grandmother and our things, while I drove old
+Brindle. I shall never forget our first few days in our new home. We
+couldn't get used to it for some reason. Everything was so rough, and
+clumsy and awkward, I suppose.
+
+"Your grandmother got homesick, and didn't want me to leave her alone a
+minute. She was afraid of bears and Indians, and she remembered all the
+fearful stories she had ever heard or read, of the terrible things that
+happened to settlers in the backwoods.
+
+"As I was busy at work in clearing up a piece of ground round the
+shanty, I didn't have to leave her alone except when I went after old
+Brindle nights. The feed in the woods was so plenty that the old cow
+didn't care whether she came home or not, and I had to lock her up every
+night as regular as night came. Sometimes I found her close by home, and
+sometimes two or three miles off. She wore a little bell which I could
+hear some distance off from where she was, and it wasn't very hard work
+to find her.
+
+"I almost always took my gun with me when I went after the old cow, and
+hardly ever missed bringing home a partridge or a squirrel, which your
+grandmother would cook for our dinner next day. We had plenty of game in
+those days, and it was splendid hunting any where you took a notion to
+go. The woods were full of deer and all kinds of fowl, and so far as
+that kind of food was concerned, we lived on the fat of the land.
+
+"One night, after we had been here about a month, I started to hunt up
+the cow, and forgot my gun until I had got so far that I concluded I
+wouldn't go back after it. I went on through the woods in the direction
+I had seen old Brindle go in the morning when I let her out of the
+stable, but I could hear no bell. I wandered round and round through the
+woods until it got to be quite dark. I must have got 'turned round,' as
+we used to say in those days when we got bewildered, and couldn't tell
+which way was north or south, for when I gave up hunting for the cow and
+concluded to go home I didn't know which way to go.
+
+"However, I started in the direction I thought most likely led towards
+home. I had been going straight ahead, as I supposed, for ten or fifteen
+minutes, when I heard something coming toward me with a heavy tread, and
+pretty soon I heard a growl. Then I knew what it was. I had never seen a
+bear in the woods, and I had no idea about what sort of fellows they
+were to meet.
+
+"If I had had my gun along I should have stood my ground, but without
+any kind of weapon I thought it best to look out for any possible
+danger, and made for a tree which stood near me. I was a good climber,
+and in a minute I was stowed away safely in the branches. But I had
+hardly reached my position when the bear came running up to the tree,
+and began walking round and round it, stopping every few seconds to
+raise himself up on his hind feet and take a look at me, or else
+stretching up against the tree as far as he could reach, as if he
+hesitated climbing up after me.
+
+"I had a jack-knife with me, and I cut off a limb, which I trimmed into
+something like a club, to defend myself with if he concluded to come up
+and make a visit. Whenever he showed a desire to do so, by reaching up
+his great black paws and tearing away at the bark with his claws, I
+pounded my club against the body of the tree as far down as I could
+reach toward him, and that frightened him enough to keep him from
+climbing.
+
+"But I couldn't frighten him away. He kept walking round and round the
+tree growling and whining very much like a dog, and I made up my mind
+that he had concluded to wait for me to come down. But I had no notion
+of doing that yet a while.
+
+"Two or three hours went by. I wondered what your grandmother would
+think had happened to me. I knew she would be frightened almost to
+death, and that worried me, but I saw no way of getting out of the
+difficulty I had got into, and concluded I should have to spend the
+night in the tree.
+
+"By and by the moon came up. I could see him distinctly then, as he kept
+up his march around me. He was an enormous fellow, and a man would have
+stood but little chance for his life with him unless he had been well
+armed.
+
+"Well, he kept watch of me all night. He got tired of walking, by and
+by, and laid down close to the tree. Whenever I stirred, he would rouse
+up and resume his walk. Neither of us slept. You may be sure it was a
+long night to me. I couldn't help thinking of your poor grandmother, and
+wondering what she was doing.
+
+"At last morning came. I thought the bear would be sure to take his
+departure then, but he evidently had made up his mind to see the thing
+out, for he made no effort to leave.
+
+"It must have been about seven o'clock when I heard some one hallooing
+not far off, and, peering through the branches, I saw your grandmother,
+with my gun on her shoulder. She had started out to look for me. I saw
+that the bear had not discovered her, and I shouted:
+
+"'Don't come any nearer, Susan. I'm up the hickory tree, and there's a
+big bear at the foot of it. If he sees you there'll be trouble. You'd
+better go back to the house, and I'll come as soon as I can.'
+
+"I saw her stop and look toward us very earnestly, and I knew she was
+thinking whether she could help me out of my difficulty. Pretty soon I
+saw her rest the gun over a little sapling and take sight at the bear,
+who had squatted down a few feet from the foot of the tree, and sat
+there looking up at me as if he was trying to make out what I was
+shouting so for.
+
+"I was just going to tell your grandmother not to shoot, for I never
+once supposed she could hit the animal, when, bang! went the gun, and
+the bear gave a growl and a leap into the air, where he spun around like
+a top, and then dropped flat on the ground, and never stirred but once
+or twice afterward.
+
+"'You've killed him!' I shouted, and slid down from my rather
+uncomfortable quarters, just as your grandmother came running up, pale
+as a ghost, and almost frightened at what she had dared to do. The
+minute she realized there was no danger, she drooped into my arms, and
+began to cry.
+
+"We cut up the bear and took most of it to the house. It kept us in meat
+for a long time, and we used the skin for a carpet. I didn't forget my
+gun after that when I went after old Brindle, you may be quite sure.
+
+"Your grandmother had never fired off a gun before, but when she found
+out that they weren't such terrible things after all as she had supposed
+they must be, she practiced with my rifle until she could shoot as well
+as I could, and after that she used to keep us in partridge and such
+game, while I cleared off land for crops. That first shot of hers was
+the best one she ever made, however."
+
+"And so grandmother really killed a bear!" cried the children, and
+straightway the pleasant-faced, smiling grandmother became a heroine in
+their estimation, as they thought over the story grandfather had told.
+
+
+
+
+  =THE NICKEL LIBRARY is not a reprint of Old Stories. It is the only
+  fresh, original Library Edition, from celebrated authors, in the
+  United States. No double numbers. No low trash, or slang.=
+
+The Nickel Library
+
+Has very justly become the most popular series of novelettes that has
+ever been offered to the public. The reason of this is apparent: The
+publishers _will not re-print old stories_. Each number of the NICKEL
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+complete in itself, no double numbers, and all the books are of uniform
+size.
+
+There is another feature, and perhaps the leading one that has brought
+this publication into general favor, and that is its pure and wholesome
+tone. While the romances are filled with thrilling adventures, many of
+them founded upon history, not a profane or vulgar word mars a single
+page, and low expressions or slang phrases, which have contaminated too
+much of the cheap literature of this country, will not be found in THE
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+
+While the stories are enjoyable to the highest degree, the forest
+adventures give so correctly the habits and customs of aboriginal
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+
+
+CATALOGUE.
+
+=No. 1--RAINBOW, a Romance of Frontier Life.= BY C. LEON MEREDITH. A
+splendid story of Early Times.
+
+=No. 2--CANOE BIRD, or, The Witch of the Dakotas.= A tale of the Great
+Northwest. BY C. LEON MEREDITH. Abounding in Adventures among the Sioux.
+
+=No. 3--BOY CAPTIVE, or The Exiles of the Great Forest.= BY C. LEON
+MEREDITH. A Dashing Tale of the Great Woods.
+
+=No. 4--GRAY WOLF. The Boy Hunter.= BY MARLINE MANLY. A Romance of the
+Western Wilds.
+
+=No. 5--THE YOUNG GOLD HUNTERS.= A Tale of the Black Hills. BY MARLINE
+MANLY. A stirring Narrative of the New Gold Fields.
+
+=No. 6--THE HAUNTED RANCH, or The Horse Thieves of the Border.= BY HARRY
+ST. GEORGE. A Rousing Story of Kentucky Backwoods.
+
+=No. 7--HOWDEGA, or the Forest Waif.= BY MARLINE MANLY. A Rattling Tale
+of the Old Northwest.
+
+=No. 8--DUNCAN, or the Giant of the Woods.= BY C. LEON MEREDITH. A
+crowning Forest Story.
+
+=No. 9--THE PIRATES FATE, or Doom of the Esmeralda.= BY WILL FUENTRES.
+Best Sea story of the present day.
+
+=No. 10--BUCKEYE PIONEERS, or Perils of the Old Frontier.= By the author
+of "Early Time Incidents." Traditional stories of hair-breadth escapes.
+
+=No. 11--MOHAWK RANGERS, An Historical Tale of the Cherry Valley
+Massacre.= BY MARLINE MANLY. A thrilling story.
+
+=No. 12--BARTOL EDBROOKE, or The Treasure Trove of the Pacific.= BY
+WELDON J. COBB, JR. A capital tale of ocean castaways.
+
+=No. 13--BORDER PEARL, or The Hermit of the Gulch.= BY C. LEON MEREDITH.
+A powerful romance of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
+
+=No. 14--BEAVER-CAP BEN, or The Boy Trailers.= By T. C. HARBAUGH.
+Brimming over full of wild adventure.
+
+=No. 15--BOY WRECKERS, or Secrets of the Sea.= BY DASH DALE. A Tale of
+the Hidden Reef.
+
+=No. 16--JACK, THE BEAR MAN; or, The Little Mountain Archer.= BY J. R.
+MUSICK, Esq. A story of the Golden Northwest.
+
+=No. 17--LITTLE OSKALOO, or The White Whirlwind.= By T. C. HARBAUGH. A
+Story of Ohio in 1794.
+
+=No. 18--RED ROLAND; or The Last Cruise of the Storm King.= BY WILL
+FUENTRES. A tale of the old Buccaneers.
+
+=No. 19--FIRE FLINT, or the Trappers of the Wabash.= BY C. LEON
+MEREDITH. A rousing story of intrigue and mystery.
+
+=No. 20--DESERT PRINCE, or The Eagle of the Seas.= BY COLONEL PRENTISS
+INGRAHAM. A romance of Morocco and its waters.
+
+=No. 21--OLD SOLITARY, or The Ride to Death.= BY MARLINE MANLY. A tale
+of the Prairie Crusade.
+
+    =Each Book contains Thirty-Two Pages, illustrated, and every
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+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+Spelling errors include:
+
+  Page 4, "Shawness" changed to "Shawnees".
+  Page 6, "stubborness" changed to "stubbornness".
+  Page 6, "abrubtly" changed to "abruptly".
+  Page 7, "does'nt" changed to "doesn't" twice.
+  Page 7, "did'nt" changed to "didn't" twice.
+  Page 7, "was'nt" changed to "wasn't".
+  Page 8, "was'nt" changed to "wasn't".
+  Page 9, "harrangue" changed to "harangue".
+  Page 10, "beligerent" changed to "belligerent".
+  Page 10, "dispises" changed to "despises".
+  Page 10, "particpants" changed to "participants".
+  Page 10, "Parqatin" changed to "Parquatin" for consistency.
+  Page 11, "she" changed to "the".
+  Page 14, "secresy" changed to "secrecy".
+  Page 15, "abandond" changed to "abandoned".
+  Page 16, "statue" changed to "stature".
+  Page 16, "cubboard" changed to "cupboard".
+  Page 21, "Paquatoc" changed to "Parquatoc" for consistency.
+  Page 22, "ceasd" changed to "ceased".
+  Page 24, "saddenly" changed to "suddenly".
+  Page 27, "Moocasin" changed to "Moccasin".
+  Page 28, "begrimmed" changed to "begrimed".
+  Page 28, "appproaching" changed to "approaching".
+  Page 28, "settlment" changed to "settlement".
+  Page 32, "Briming" changed to "Brimming".
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Little Oskaloo, by Thomas Chalmers Harbaugh
+
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