ee that in her face."

Having completed his preparations, the hunter stepped lightly across
the parade ground, as the major called the enclosed square, and opened
the tool-house door, which he had softly unlocked, in anticipation of
this time, the moment before handing its key to Major Hester.
Carefully as he entered the building, its inmates were instantly wide
awake and aware of his presence. With a few whispered words he
explained the situation to Songa, adding that while the white chief had
no authority to free a prisoner, he was unwilling that one whose life
had been saved by his child should be restored to those who would
surely kill him. "Therefore," continued the hunter, "he bids you make
good your escape while it is yet dark, taking with you these presents.
He would have you tell no man of the manner of your going, and bids you
remember, if ever English captives are in your power, that you owe both
life and liberty to an English child."

"To you," he added, turning to Songa's heroic wife, "the white squaw
sends the greeting of one brave woman to another. She bids you go in
peace, lead your husband to the lodges of his people, and restore him
to the child who, but for her child, would now be fatherless."

As the young Ottawa, assisted by his loving wife, slowly gained his
feet and painfully straightened his body, whose stiffened wounds
rendered every movement one of torture, he answered simply:--

"The words of my white brother are good. Songa will never forget them.
If all white men were like him, there would be no more fighting, for
the hatchet would be buried forever."

While both the hunter and the squaw rubbed the sufferer's limbs with
bear's grease, and so in a measure restored their suppleness, the
latter said in a low voice, that was yet thrilling in its intensity:--

"Tell my white sister that through her words I can understand the love
of the Great Spirit for his children. They have sunk deep into my
heart, where their refreshing shall ever be as that of cool waters."

In the first faint flush of the coming dawn two dusky figures slipped,
with the silence of shadows, from among the buildings of Tawtry House,
sped across the open, and vanished in the blackness of the forest. At
the same time Truman Flagg, well satisfied with the act just performed,
though wondering as to what would be its results, returned to his own
lodging, flung himself on his couch of skins, and was quickly buried in
sl