eral and all
his army have surrendered to the Long Knives of Washington. His name
is Cornwallis. He surrendered many moons ago. There is peace talk.
Are your ears stopped up, that you have not heard!"

"We have not heard," they answered, astonished. "No one has told us.
We will ask if it is true."

They asked James Girty and Alexander McKee. James Girty was frequently
drunk, and altogether worthless; but Captain McKee, the British trader,
lived in a large house of hewn white-oak logs, wore a fine uniform,
kept by himself, and was highly thought of.

He and James Girty laughed at the story of John Slover.

"That is a lie," they said. "He tries to frighten you. The British
soldiers have been eating up the Americans. They soon will capture
that man Washington. We say so, and we know."

Another white Indian reported that Slover had agreed with him to
escape. This angered the town, again. A general council was called.
The council-house was filled with Shawnees, Mingos, Chippewas,
Delawares and Hurons. Two Indians came to the old squaw's cabin to get
her "son." She covered him with a large bear-skin, in a corner, and
drove the two Indians out with a club and her tongue.

John waited. He knew what would happen. Presently, in strode George
Girty, another of the brothers, in Delaware paint. He brought forty
warriors with him. They threw the old squaw to one side, and dragged
John Slover through the door; tore off all his clothes, painted him
black, tied his hands, and triumphantly marched him away, by a rope
around his neck.

Evidently the council had decided. The old squaw wailed vainly. She
had only hastened his doom.

"We have waited long enough," gibed George Girty, swearing horridly.
"Now you'll get what you deserve. You'll eat fire."

They took him to a smaller town of Wakatomica, five miles distant.
There they and the other people beat him for an hour. It was the
beginning. They hustled him on to a third town, named Mequa-chake--Red
Earth. John Slover lost all hope. He was Indian enough to know.
Mequa-chake was to be his finish. He had no friends here.

The stake was ready, for hoots and howls and shaken fists greeted him.
The people--warriors, squaws, boys and girls--old and young they could
scarcely wait. He was towed and shoved and jostled to the
council-house. It was only half roofed. The stake, a stout post
sixteen feet high, had been planted in the center of the unroofed part.