k. Suddenly their whole line gave way, and we
broke through--riflemen, militia, Massachusetts men--broke through with
a terrific yell. And before us fled Indian and Tory, yager and
renegade, Greens, Rangers, Highlanders, officers galloping madly,
baggage-wagons smashed, horses down, camp trampled to tatters and
splinters as the vengeance of Tryon County passed in a tornado of fury
that cleansed the land forever of Walter Butler and his demons of the
North!

In that furious onslaught through the darkness and smoke, where
prisoners were being taken, Indians and Greens chased and shot down, a
steady flicker of rifle-fire marked the course of the disastrous rout,
and the frenzied vengeance following--an awful vengeance now, for, in
the blackness, a new and dreadful sound broke--the fiercely melancholy
scalp-yell of my Oneidas!

Galloping across a swampy field, where the dead and scalped lay in the
ooze, I shouted the Wolf Clan challenge; and a lone cry answered me,
coming nearer, nearer, until in the smoke-shot darkness I saw the
terrific painted shape of an Indian looming, saluting me with uplifted
and reeking hatchet.

"Brother! brother!" I groaned, "by the Wolf whose sign we wear, and by
the sign of Tharon, follow her who is to be my wife--follow by night,
by day, through the haunts of men, through the still places! Go
swiftly, O my brother the Otter--swiftly as hound on trail! I charge
you by that life you owe, by that clan tie which breaks not when
nations break, by the sign of Tharon, that floats among the stars
forever, find me this woman whom I am to wed! Your life for hers, O
brother! Go!"

CHAPTER XV

BUTLER'S FORD

For four breathless days the broad, raw trail of a thousand men in
headlong flight was the trampled path we traveled. Smashing straight
through the northern wilderness, our enemy with horses, wagons, batmen,
soldiers, Indians burst into the forest, tearing saplings, thickets,
underbrush aside in their mad northward rush for the safety of the
Canadas and the shelter denied them here. Threescore Oneida hatchets
glittered in their rear; four hundred rifles followed; for the Red
Beast was in flight at last, stricken, turning now and again to snarl
when the tireless, stern-faced trackers drew too near, then running on
again, growling, impotent. And the Red Beast must be done to death.

What fitter place to end him than here in the wild twilight of shaggy
depths, unlighted by the sun or moo