hours to wait. Can I trust the man? Haven't I
trusted him for six years, and where is the time that he has played me
false? I have put money into his buckskin purse, and he knows that at a
sign of betrayal I would kill him as heartlessly as I slew Parquatin at
the council in the hollow. That council!" and the speaker clenched his
lips, and his dark eyes shot flashes of fire from their lash-fringed
caves of revenge.

"They made me kill the young chief," he went on, as if speaking before a
stern court in his own defense. "Or I should say that _he_ made me do
it. They say that I haven't got a spark of manhood left--that I am the
only devil in the Northwest Territory, and hunt and dog me on every
side. I _am_ a bad man, the worst perhaps in these parts. The Indian is
my companion, and when he can't invent new deviltry, he comes to me. But
I have some good traits left. The dog that steals sheep and bites
children is capable of loving his master. I have a brother, and though
we have together trod the paths of iniquity from the trough
cradle--though he has sought to lower me in the eyes of the tribes, I
would not lift a hand against him. No, Simon Girty, your brother loves
you because your mother was his; but," and the renegade paused a moment,
"but even a brother may wrong too deeply. Keep from me, Simon. Devil
that I am, and fiend incarnate and powerful in these woods, I am capable
of loving even _you_!"

These words, though spoken in a low tone, fell upon other ears than the
White Whirlwind's. Not far from his cabin door stood a great tree,
gnarled and lightning-rent, and behind it, in its grotesque shadow,
stood a lithe figure, girlish and graceful, and two brilliant eyes were
fastened on the outlaw. The little hand that hung at the side and
touched the beaded fringe of a trim frock, clutched a rifle which was
cocked ready for instant use.

"He would never tell me; he may tell me now!" fell from the lips behind
the tree. "He has been talking about his bad life, and may be the
Manitou is smiling in his heart."

With the last word on her lips, for the voice and figure denoted that
the speaker was a girl, a figure stepped from the shadows and pronounced
the renegade's forest name.

Jim Girty started and retreated quickly, as if to secure a weapon, but
his eye caught sight of the advancing person, and he recognized her with
a strange mixture of affection and hatred in his eyes.

Areotha, or Little Moccasin, soon stood