han me?" asked
Girty, quickly, in surprise.

"Ay, a thousand times!" replied Ella, energetically, rising as she
spoke, into a sitting posture, and looking fearlessly upon the renegade,
her previously pale features now flushed with excitement. "I fear not
death, Simon Girty; I have done no act that should make me fear the
change that all must sooner or later undergo; but I could not join my
hand to that of a man of blood, without loathing and horror, and feeling
criminal in the sight of God and man; and least of all to you, Simon
Girty, whose name has become a word of terror to the weak and innocent
of my race, and whose deeds of late have been such as to make me join my
voice in the general maledictions called down upon you."

During this speech of Ella, Girty sat and gazed upon her with the look
of a baffled demon; and, as she concluded, fairly hissed through his
teeth:

"And so you would prefer death to me, eh? By ----! you shall have your
choice!"

As he spoke, he grasped Ella by the wrist with one hand, seized his
tomahawk with the other, and sprung upon his feet. His rapid movement
and wild manner now really frightened her; and uttering a faint cry of
horror, she endeavored to release his hold; while the warriors, aroused
by the noise, bounded up from the earth, weapon in hand, with looks of
alarm.

Turning to them, Girty now spoke a few words in the Indian tongue; and,
with significant glances at Ella, they were just in the act of again
encamping, when crack went some five or six rifles, followed by yells
little less savage than their own, and four of them rolled upon the
earth, groaning with pain; while the others, surprised and bewildered,
grasped their weapons and shouted:

"The Shemanoes!" "The Long Knives!" not knowing whether to stand or fly.

Girty, meantime, had been left unharmed; although the shivering of the
helve of the tomahawk in his hand, in front of his breast, showed him
he had been a target for no mean marksman, and that his life had been
preserved almost by a miracle. For a moment he stood irresolute--his
nostrils fairly dilated with fear and rage, still holding Ella by
the wrist, who was too paralyzed with what she had seen to speak or
move--straining his eyes in every direction to note, if possible, the
number of his foes and whence their approach. The whole glance was
momentary; but he saw himself nearly surrounded by his enemies, who
were fast closing in toward the center with fierc