he roped
prisoner enraged him. He had lost a son, by a white man's rifle. In a
twinkling he had sprung up, grabbed the ax from the squaw, and at one
blow had cut Simon's arm wellnigh off at the shoulder.

The ax whirled high for a more deadly blow, but another Indian caught
at it just in time.

"Shame on you!" he scolded. "You act like a fool. This man is for the
stake. Would you cheat us out of him, when the people ahead are
expecting great pleasure?"

Half dead from loss of blood, poor Simon arrived at the village. It
was the town where the sullen Logan, once the firm friend of the
whites, lived. Here he was eating his heart, with grief over the
wrongs done to him.[1]

Chief Logan the Mingo walked over to Simon, and surveyed him. Simon
did not know who he was; he may have heard of Simon.

"Well, young man," he said, in good English, "these other young men
seem very mad at you."

"They certainly do," Simon admitted ruefully.

The dark Logan slightly smiled.

"Don't be discouraged. I am a great chief. You are to go to Sandusky.
They talk of burning you there. But I will send two runners to speak
good of you."

Simon's heart bounded. When he learned that this handsome,
determined-looking Indian was Chief Logan the celebrated Mingo, he
thought himself rescued, sure.

True to promise, the two runners took the Sandusky trail early in the
morning. The Shawnee guard waited, and left Simon to the care of
Logan. Things had brightened wonderfully. Chief Logan would not say,
but he acted as if in hopes of success. He and Simon spent most of the
day together. In the evening the two runners returned. They sought
out Chief Logan, and talked apart with him, and Simon scarcely slept,
so anxious was he to know their report.

The next morning he saw his guards coming, with Logan. Alas, the
chief's face was sober. He brought a piece of bread.

"You are to be carried to Sandusky at once," he uttered shortly. That
was all. He walked away without another sound. Plainly enough his
good words had been of no use.

Simon sighed. Was ever a man so buffeted about, before, from high to
low, and low to high, and high to low again! It was a case of the
mouse and the cat, with fortune playing as the cat, and he serving as
the mouse.

The five guards from Wakatomica took him in tow, for Upper Sandusky,
and he gave over hoping any more.

Upper Sandusky, northern Ohio, was a Wyandot Huron town. It was a
ce