as if the sight were offensive to him,
quietly said:

"An honest man would be degraded by condescending to hold discourse with
so mean a _thing_ as Simon Girty the renegade."

At these words Girty started, as if bit by a serpent--the aspect of his
dark sinister features changed to one concentrated expression of hellish
rage--his eyes seemed to turn red--his lips quivered--the nostrils of
his flat ugly nose distended--froth issued from his mouth--while his
fingers worked convulsively at the handle of his tomahawk, and his whole
frame trembled like a tree shaken by a whirlwind. For some time he
essayed to speak, in vain; but at last he hissed forth, as he whirled
the tomahawk aloft:

"Die!--dog!--die!"

Ella uttered a piercing shriek of fear, and sprung forward to arrest the
blow; but ere she could have reached the renegade; the axe would have
been buried to the helve in the brain of Algernon, had not a tall,
powerful Indian suddenly interposed his rifle between it and the victim.

"Is the great chief a child, or in his dotage," he said to Girty, in the
Shawanoe dialect, "that he lets passion run away with his reason? Is not
the Big Knife already doomed to the tortures? And would the white chief
give him the death of a warrior?"

"No, by ----!" cried Girty, with an oath. "He shall have a dog's death!
Right! Mugwaha--right! I thank you for your interference--I was beside
myself. The stake--the torture--the stake--ha, ha, ha!" added he in
English, with a hoarse laugh, which his recent passion made sound
fiend-like and unearthly; and as he concluded, he smote Algernon on the
cheek with the palm of his hand.

The latter winced somewhat, but mastered his feelings and made no reply;
and the renegade resuming his former pace, the party again proceeded in
silence.

Toward night, Ella became so fatigued and exhausted by the long day's
march, that it was with the greatest difficulty she could move forward
at all; and Girty, taking some compassion on her, ordered the party to
halt, until a rough kind of litter could be prepared; on which being
seated, she was borne forward by four of the Indians. At dark they
halted at the base of a hill, where they encamped and found a partial
shelter from the wind and rain. At daylight they again resumed their
journey; and by four o'clock in the afternoon arrived at the river,
which they immediately crossed in their canoes; and, as the water was
found in a good stage, did not land until