ffer."

"What is your offer, Chief?" asked Henry, knowing well that, whatever
the offer might be, Timmendiquas was the head and front of it--and
despite his question he could surmise its nature.

"It is this. You are our prisoner. You are one of our enemies, and we
took you in battle. Your life belongs to us, and by our laws you would
surely die in torture. But you are at the beginning of life. Manitou has
been good to you. He has given you the eye of the eagle, the courage of
the Wyandot, and the strength of the panther. You could be a hunter and
a warrior more moons than I can count, until you are older than Black
Hoof, who led the Shawnees before you were born, to the salt water and
back again.

"Is death sweet to you, just when you are becoming a great warrior?
There is one way, and one only to escape it. If a prisoner, strong and
brave like you, wishes to join us, shave his head and be a Wyandot,
sometimes we take him. That question was laid before the chiefs last
night. The white men, Girty, Blackstaffe, Wyatt, and the others, were
against it, but I, wishing to save your life and see you my brother in
arms, favored it, and there were others who helped me. We have had our
wish, and so I say to you: 'Be a Wyandot and live, refuse and die.'"

It was put plainly, tersely, but Henry had expected it, and his answer
was ready. His resolution had been taken and could not be altered.

"I choose death," he said, adopting the Wyandot's epigrammatic manner.

A shade of sadness appeared for a moment on the face of Timmendiquas.

"You cannot change?" he asked.

"No," replied Henry. "I belong to my own people. I cannot desert them
and go against them even to escape death. Such a temptation was placed
in my way once before, Timmendiquas, but I had to refuse it."

"I would save your life," said the chief.

"I know it, and I thank you. I tell you, too, that I have no fancy for
fire and the stake, but the price that you ask is too much."

"I cannot ask any other."

"I know it, but I have made my choice and I hope, Timmendiquas, that if
I must go to the happy hunting grounds I shall meet you there some day,
and that we shall hunt together."

The eyes of the chief gleamed for a moment, and, turning abruptly, he
left the lodge.

There was joy among the renegades when the decision of Henry was made
known, and now he was guarded more closely than ever. Meanwhile, all the
boys about to become warriors were being initiated,