think of the girl's terrible fate, and was succeeding
rapidly when a light step sounded behind me and her low voice was saying:

"My brother is at the spring. You will find him there."

I rose and dropped the rifle into the hollow of my left arm and stared at
her incredulously. It had happened before, the rebellion of white
prisoners at quitting their captors. Yet the girl's refusal was
astounding.

"You would not go with him?"

"I am here. I go to my people," she answered. "He is waiting for you. The
squaws would laugh at him. He is very weak."

With an oath I whirled toward the Indian. Had he made a move or had he
reflected her disdain with a smile, his white-red wife surely would have
been a widow on the spot. But he had not shifted his position. To all
appearances he was not even interested in his wife's return. And she too
now ignored me, and busied herself in gathering up their few belongings
and slinging them on her back. Then she went to him, and in disgust and
rage I left them and sped through the darkening woods to the spring where
I had first seen the imprints of her tiny moccasins.

Cousin was there, seated and his head bowed on his chest, a waiting victim
for the first Indian scout who might happen along.

I dragged him to his feet and harshly said:

"Come! We must go. Your white sister is dead. Your search is ended. Your
sister died in the raid on Keeney's Knob."

"My little sister," he whispered.

He went with me passively enough, and he did not speak until we had struck
into the main trail of the Shawnees. Then he asked:

"You did not kill him?"

"No."

"It's best that way. There're 'nough others. They'll pay for it."

I abandoned my plan of following the war-party farther and was only
anxious to get my companion back to the protection of Howard's Creek. We
followed the back-trail for a few miles and then were forced by the night
to make a camp. I opened my supply of smoked meat and found a spring. I
did not dare to risk a fire. But he would not eat. Only once did he speak
that night, and that was to say:

"I must keep clear o' the settlements. If I don't I'll do as Ike Crabtree
does, kill in sight o' the cabins."

In the morning he ate some of my food; not as if he were hungry, but as if
forcing himself to a disagreeable task. He seemed to be perfectly willing
to go on with me, but he did not speak of the girl again.

When we drew near the creek he began to look about him. He at onc