if you can catch the girl," answered Col. Zane.

Betty's face flushed at Alfred's cool assumption. How dared he? In
spite of her will she could not resist the power that compelled her
to look at him. As plainly as if it were written there, she saw in
his steady blue eyes the light of a memory--the memory of a kiss.
And Betty dropped her head, her face burning, her heart on fire with
shame, and love, and regret.

"It'll be a good chance for me, too," said Wetzel. His remark
instantly turned attention to himself.

"The idea is absurd," said Isaac. "Why, Lew Wetzel, you could not be
made to kiss any girl."

"I would not be backward about it," said Col. Zane.

"You have forgotten the fuss you made when the boys were kissing
me," said Mrs. Zane with a fine scorn.

"My dear," said Col. Zane, in an aggrieved tone, "I did not make so
much of a fuss, as you call it, until they had kissed you a great
many times more than was reasonable."

"Isaac, tell us one thing more," said Capt. Boggs. "How did Myeerah
learn of your capture by Cornplanter? Surely she could not have
trailed you?"

"Will you tell us?" said Isaac to Myeerah.

"A bird sang it to me," answered Myeerah.

"She will never tell, that is certain," said Isaac. "And for that
reason I believe Simon Girty got word to her that I was in the hands
of Cornplanter. At the last moment when the Indians were lashing me
to the stake Girty came to me and said he must have been too late."

"Yes, Girty might have done that," said Col. Zane. "I suppose,
though he dared not interfere in behalf of poor Crawford."

"Isaac, Can you get Myeerah to talk? I love to hear her speak," said
Betty, in an aside.

"Myeerah, will you sing a Huron love-song?" said Isaac "Or, if you
do not wish to sing, tell a story. I want them to know how well you
can speak our language."

"What shall Myeerah say?" she said, shyly.

"Tell them the legend of the Standing Stone."

"A beautiful Indian girl once dwelt in the pine forests," began
Myeerah, with her eyes cast down and her hand seeking Isaac's. "Her
voice was like rippling waters, her beauty like the rising sun. From
near and from far came warriors to see the fair face of this maiden.
She smiled on them all and they called her Smiling Moon. Now there
lived on the Great Lake a Wyandot chief. He was young and bold. No
warrior was as great as Tarhe. Smiling Moon cast a spell on his
heart. He came many times to woo her and make her his wife.