hoarsely
whispered. "When I meet one of 'em in a settlement I skedaddle afore I
lose my grip. I mustn't do anything that'll fetch a parcel of 'em down to
carry off some other feller's little sister. If I know'd she was
dead----"

"If you'd stop killing long enough to question some of the Shawnees you
might learn the truth."

He shook his head slowly, and said:

"I stopped--just afore the killin' at Baker's Bottom. Kept my Injun alive
all night. But he wouldn't tell."

I shuddered at the cold-bloodedness of him.

"You tortured him and perhaps he knew nothing to tell," I said.

"If he didn't know nothin' it was hard luck for him," he quietly agreed.
"But I was sartain from things he had boasted that he was at the Knob that
day. What you goin' to do with this varmint?"

And he nodded toward the dead voyager.

"My business won't allow me to take the time necessary to dig a grave
where his friends can't find him or wild animals dig him out. We'll set
him afloat again and hope he'll journey far down the river before his
friends find him. He was friendly to us----"

"Friendly----" interrupted the boy. "So was Cornstalk friendly!"

I removed the journey-cake from the grinning mouth and placed the rigid
figure in the bottom of the canoe. Before I could push the craft into the
current young Cousin grunted with satisfaction and pointed to two
bullet-holes, close together, just back of the ear.

"Knew I must hit pretty close to where I was shootin'," he muttered as he
made up the bank.

I shoved the canoe from shore and called after him: "If you will wait
until I get my horse we might travel together."

He waved his hand in farewell and informed me: "I've got some business
west o' here. It's out o' your path if you're makin' for the Greenbriar."

"But a bit of gossip. I'm just back from Fort Pitt," I said.

He halted and leaned on his rifle and stared at me with lack-luster eyes,
and in a monotonous voice said:

"Ed Sharpe, Dick Stanton, Eph Drake an' Bill Harrel are scoutin' the head
o' Powell's Valley. Wanted me to go but the signs wa'n't promisin' 'nough.
Logan says he'll take ten sculps for one. He still thinks Michael Cresap
led the killin' at Baker's--an' Cresap was at Red Stone when it happened.
Cresap wants to be mighty keerful he don't fall into Logan's hands alive.

"Half the folks on the South Fork o' the Clinch can't raise five shoots o'
powder. Folks on Rye Cove been movin' over to the Holston, leav