terror. Colonel Armstrong has been sent by the Governor to try to
fall upon him unawares, and oust him from his vantage ground. If
the town were but destroyed and he slain, we might know a little
ease of mind."

The eyes of the Rangers lighted with anticipation. This was the
first they had heard of real warfare. If they could lend a hand to
such an expedition as this, they would feel rewarded for all their
pains and toil.

"Captain Jacobs, Captain Jacobs!" repeated Charles, with a gleam in
his sombre eyes; "tell me what manner of man this Captain Jacobs
is."

"I have seen him once--a giant in height, painted in vermilion, and
carrying always in his hand a mighty spear, which they say none but
he can wield. His eyes roll terribly, and upon his brow is a
strange scar shaped like a crescent--"

"Ay, ay, ay; and in his hair is one white tuft, which he has
braided with scarlet thread," interposed Charles, panting and
twitching in his excitement.

"That is the man--the most bloodthirsty fire eater of all the
Indian chiefs. Could the country but be rid of him, we might sleep
in our beds in peace once more, instead of lying shivering and
shaking at every breath which passes over the forest at night."

"Let us be gone!" cried Charles, shaking his knife in a meaning and
menacing fashion; "I thirst to be there when that man's record is
closed. Let me see his end; let me plunge my knife into his black
heart! There is another yet whom my vengeance must overtake; but
let me fall upon this one first."

"Was he one of the attacking party that desolated your homestead?"
asked Stark, as they moved along in the given direction, after a
brief pause for rest and refreshment.

"Ay, he was," answered Charles grimly. "I could not forget that
gigantic form, that mighty spear, that scar and the white tuft! He
stood by, and laughed at my frantic struggles, at the screams of
the children, at the agony of my gentle wife. A fiend from the pit
could not have been more cruel. But the hour is at hand when it
shall be done to him as he has done. His hand lighted the wood pile
they had set against the door of the house. Let him suffer a like
fate at our hands in the day of vengeance!"

Spurred on by the hope of striking some well-planted blow at the
heart of the enemy, the hardy band of Rangers pushed their way
through the forest tracks, scarcely pausing for rest or sleep, till
the lights of a little camp and settlement twinkled before the