es.

"When we let you out you'll have a clear path. Run, but not very
fast. Save your speed. Tell the Colonel to empty a keg of powder in
a table cloth. Throw it over your shoulder and start back. Run like
you was racin' with me, and keep on comin' if you do get hit. Now
go!"

The huge gate creaked and swung in. Betty ran out, looking straight
before her. She had covered half the distance between the Fort and
the Colonel's house when long taunting yells filled the air.

"Squaw! Waugh! Squaw! Waugh!" yelled the Indians in contempt.

Not a shot did they fire. The yells ran all along the river front,
showing that hundreds of Indians had seen the slight figure running
up the gentle slope toward the cabin.

Betty obeyed Wetzel's instructions to the letter. She ran easily and
not at all hurriedly, and was as cool as if there had not been an
Indian within miles.

Col. Zane had seen the gate open and Betty come forth. When she
bounded up the steps he flung open that door and she ran into his
arms.

"Betts, for God's sake! What's this?" he cried.

"We are out of powder. Empty a keg of powder into a table cloth.
Quick! I've not a second to lose," she answered, at the same time
slipping off her outer skirt. She wanted nothing to hinder that run
for the block-house.

Jonathan Zane heard Betty's first words and disappeared into the
magazine-room. He came out with a keg in his arms. With one blow of
an axe he smashed in the top of the keg. In a twinkling a long black
stream of the precious stuff was piling up in a little hill in the
center of the table. Then the corners of the table cloth were caught
up, turned and twisted, and the bag of powder was thrown over
Betty's shoulder.

"Brave girl, so help me God, you are going to do it!" cried Col.
Zane, throwing open the door. "I know you can. Run as you never ran
in all your life."

Like an arrow sprung from a bow Betty flashed past the Colonel and
out on the green. Scarcely ten of the long hundred yards had been
covered by her flying feet when a roar of angry shouts and yells
warned Betty that the keen-eyed savages saw the bag of powder and
now knew they had been deceived by a girl. The cracking of rifles
began at a point on the bluff nearest Col. Zane's house, and
extended in a half circle to the eastern end of the clearing. The
leaden messengers of Death whistled past Betty. They sped before her
and behind her, scattering pebbles in her path, striking up the
dust, an