to the Indian custom.

Nor would it do for a woman of Virginia to be redeemed to civilization
with a red husband roaming at large. No. The fellow must die, and I had
the nasty work to do. The glade was thickening with shadows, but the
sunlight still marked the top of an elm and made glorious the zenith. When
the light died from the heavens I would assassinate the man.

This would give him a scant hour, but a dozen or fifteen minutes of life
could make small difference. Then again, once the dusk filled the glade my
impassive victim would become alert and up to some of his devilish tricks.
He did not change his position except as he turned his head to gaze
fixedly at the western forest wall. One could imagine him to be ignorant
of my presence.

"Where does Black Hoof lead his warriors?" I asked him.

Without deflecting his gaze he answered:

"Back to their homes on the Scioto."

"The white trader, the Pack-Horse-Man, spoke words that drive them back?"

It was either a trick of the dying light, or else I detected an almost
imperceptible twitching of the grim lips. After a short pause he said:

"The Shawnees are not driven. They will pick up the end of the peace-belt.
They will not drop it on the ground again. Tah-gah-jute (Logan) does not
wish for war. He has taken ten scalps for every one taken from his people
at Baker's house. He has covered the dead. The Pack-Horse-Man spoke wise
words."

"This white woman? You know she must go back to her people."

Again the faint twitching of the lips. When he spoke it was to say:

"She can go where she will or where she is made to go. If she is taken to
the white settlements she will run away and go back to the Scioto. Her
people are red. After the French War, after Pontiac's War, it was the
same. White prisoners were returned to the white people. Many of them
escaped and came back to us."

His voice was calm and positive and my confidence in the girl's
willingness to return to civilization was shaken. She had been as stolid
as her red mate in my presence, but I had believed that nature would
conquer her ten years' of savagery once she was alone with her brother.

The light had left the top of the elm and the fleecy clouds overhead were
no longer dazzling because of their borrowed splendor. I cocked my rifle.
The savage folded his arms as he caught the sound, but his gaze toward the
west never wavered. To nerve myself into shooting the fellow in cold blood
I made myself