e, she quietly said:

"He looks very peaceful. Very happy. I am glad he did not have to suffer.
The bullet that took his life was very kind. It must be very beautiful to
be dead."

She ceased speaking and slowly began stretching her arms above her head,
and with a long-drawn scream she fell over backward and I knew she had
lost her reason.

-----

[4] Also Daniel Boone's Shawnee name in later years.

CHAPTER X

OUR MEDICINE GROWS STRONGER

The Shawnees' anxiety to start for the Ohio almost became a panic. The
tragic manner in which they had been robbed of their victim, the screaming
defiance of young Cousin, together with their losses in warriors,
convinced them something was radically wrong with their war-medicine.
Outwardly Black Hoof remained calm but I knew he was greatly worried. His
medicine had designated Dale for the torture, and then had permitted a
bullet to release the man.

Nor was it any small influence which the girl's condition exerted in this
desire to retreat. She seemed to be stunned. She walked about, but without
appearing to hear or see her captors. There was none of the savages who
did not believe her terrible scream prefaced her crossing the
dividing-line between reason and insanity.

As an insane person she was under the special protection of the great
manito, and black woe to him who interfered with her. The chief was eager
to abandon her to be picked up by the settlers at Howard's Creek, but she
clung tenaciously to Cousin's sister. The latter displayed no emotion over
this preference, yet she did not repulse the girl. She even was gentle in
caring for her.

Ward was for finishing me out of hand, but Black Hoof insisted I should
carry packs and make myself useful before being dispensed with. Then again
I would be something to display at the villages and something to dance
about when it came to appeasing the ghosts of the slain warriors. We broke
camp that night, and with malicious ingenuity Ward strapped packs on my
shoulders until my back buckled. As he finished and was promising to
thrust his knife into my legs if I displayed any weariness, Cousin's
sister came up and sharply directed him to remove the packs as I was to
serve as a litter-bearer.

"The white woman asks for him," she said. "Catahecassa gives him to me to
help carry the medicine-woman."

Ward raged, but Black Hoof upheld the girl; and although I knew Patricia
was too insensible of her surroundings to ask