erve that was baffling
and exasperating. Wingenund took no active part in the councils; but
his presence apparently denoted that he had sided with the others.
The outlook was altogether discouraging.

"I'm completely fagged out," declared Heckewelder, that night when
he returned to Edwards' cabin. He dropped into a chair as one whose
strength is entirely spent, whose indomitable spirit has at last
been broken.

"Lie down to rest," said Edwards.

"Oh, I can't. Matters look so black."

"You're tired out and discouraged. You'll feel better to-morrow. The
situation is not, perhaps, so hopeless. The presence of these
frontiersmen should encourage us."

"What will they do? What can they do?" cried Heckewelder, bitterly.
"I tell you never before have I encountered such gloomy, stony
Indians. It seems to me that they are in no vacillating state. They
act like men whose course is already decided upon, and who are only
waiting."

"For what?" asked Jim, after a long silence.

"God only knows! Perhaps for a time; possibly for a final decision,
and, it may be, for a reason, the very thought of which makes me
faint."

"Tell us," said Edwards, speaking quietly, for he had ever been the
calmest of the missionaries.

"Never mind. Perhaps it's only my nerves. I'm all unstrung, and
could suspect anything to-night."

"Heckewelder, tell us?" Jim asked, earnestly.

"My friends, I pray I am wrong. God help us if my fears are correct.
I believe the Indians are waiting for Jim Girty."

Chapter XXII.

Simon Girty lolled on a blanket in Half King's teepee. He was alone,
awaiting his allies. Rings of white smoke curled lazily from his
lips as he puffed on a long Indian pipe, and gazed out over the
clearing that contained the Village of Peace.

Still water has something in its placid surface significant of deep
channels, of hidden depths; the dim outline of the forest is dark
with meaning, suggestive of its wild internal character. So Simon
Girty's hard, bronzed face betrayed the man. His degenerate
brother's features were revolting; but his own were striking, and
fell short of being handsome only because of their craggy hardness.
Years of revolt, of bitterness, of consciousness of wasted life, had
graven their stern lines on that copper, masklike face. Yet despite
the cruelty there, the forbidding shade on it, as if a reflection
from a dark soul, it was not wholly a bad countenance. Traces still
lingered, faintly, of a man