cover,
tried to cover him with their rifles. The renegade was fleet of foot,
and a yell announced his escape and future revenge.

James Girty was at large again, but captiveless; for Kate Merriweather
had fallen into hands that would not desert her.

Harvey Catlett turned to the Indians when he had recovered his
equilibrium. He told then why he wished to spare Girty's life--for the
secret of Little Moccasin's parentage--and when he had finished,
Parquatoc said:

"The Blacksnake's spy must join us. All who hate the White Whirlwind
must wear the mark."

At Oscar's solicitation the young spy consented, and Parquatoc's knife
cut the sign of the banded brotherhood on his breast.

"Back to the white people with their child!" the Seneca said. "The big
fight is coming on."

They parted there--red and white--and Kate once more turned her face
toward her relatives.

CHAPTER XV.

THE FOREST WHIPPING POST.

The Merriweather family did not make rapid progress toward Wayne after
Kate's abduction. A gloom had settled over the little band of fugitives,
and they desired to remain near the spot which had been so fatal to one
of their number.

A degree of safety returned with Wolf Cap's accession to their numbers,
and the tall borderman did not cease to assure them that Harvey Catlett
was an experienced scout. He firmly believed that he would restore Kate
to their arms, and this quieted the parents and made them feel hopeful.

"Think of my loss," the hunter would say, when the parents murmured at
the theft of their child. "Think of a man coming home and finding his
cabin in ashes, and the bones of his family among them. I had one of the
best wives in the world, and a little girl who was just beginning to
call me 'papa.'"

"You have had revenge?" said Abel Merriweather.

"Ask the woods, the streams, and the Indian villages that lie between
the Ohio and the Maumee if I have not glutted my thirst for vengeance.
But it has not restored my family. I have killed, but the blows that I
have dealt did not give back my child's kiss, my wife's embrace. No;
there is no satisfaction in vengeance. Man ought to leave his wrongs to
God, who punishes the guilty in the end."

Thus Wolf Cap often talked to Abel Merriweather and his family, and
afterward he would relapse into a silence from which no one attempted to
draw him. He would stand for hours in a reverie like a harmless lunatic,
and more than once the sun which found him i