ad led her to him two evenings before. He was
insensible. She had bathed and bandaged his wound, and remained with
him all that night. The next day, finding he was ill and delirious,
she decided to risk returning to the village. If any questions
arose, she could say he had left her. Then she would find a way to
get back to him, bringing healing herbs for his wound and a soothing
drink. As it turned out Girty had returned to the camp. He was
battered and bruised, and in a white heat of passion. Going at once
to Wingenund, the renegade openly accused Whispering Winds of aiding
her paleface lover to escape. Wingenund called his daughter before
him, and questioned her. She confessed all to her father.

"Why is the daughter of Wingenund a traitor to her race?" demanded
the chief.

"Whispering Winds is a Christian."

Wingenund received this intelligence as a blow. He dismissed Girty
and sent his braves from his lodge, facing his daughter alone.
Gloomy and stern, he paced before her.

"Wingenund's blood might change, but would never betray. Wingenund
is the Delaware chief," he said. "Go. Darken no more the door of
Wingenund's wigwam. Let the flower of the Delawares fade in alien
pastures. Go. Whispering Winds is free!"

Tears shone brightly in the Indian girl's eyes while she told Joe
her story. She loved her father, and she would see him no more.

"Winds is free," she whispered. "When strength returns to her master
she can follow him to the white villages. Winds will live her life
for him."

"Then we have no one to fear?" asked Joe.

"No redman, now that the Shawnee chief is dead."

"Will Girty follow us? He is a coward; he will fear to come alone."

"The white savage is a snake in the grass."

Two long days followed, during which the lovers lay quietly in
hiding. On the morning of the third day Joe felt that he might risk
the start for the Village of Peace. Whispering Winds led the horse
below a stone upon which the invalid stood, thus enabling him to
mount. Then she got on behind him.

The sun was just gilding the horizon when they rode out of the woods
into a wide plain. No living thing could be seen. Along the edge of
the forest the ground was level, and the horse traveled easily.
Several times during the morning Joe dismounted beside a pile of
stones or a fallen tree. The miles were traversed without serious
inconvenience to the invalid, except that he grew tired. Toward the
middle of the afternoon, when