erce, so piercing a
flash, so deadly a light, that Joe could not bear their glittering
gaze.

"Three white captives, two of 'em women," uttered the hunter, as if
weighing in his mind the importance of this fact.

"Were those women on the raft?" questioned Joe, and as Wetzel only
nodded, he continued, "A white man and two women, six warriors,
Silvertip, and that renegade, Jim Girty!"

Wetzel deigned not to answer Joe's passionate outburst, but
maintained silence and his rigid posture. Joe glanced once more at
the stern face.

"Considering we'd go after Girty and his redskins if they were
alone, we're pretty likely to go quicker now that they've got white
women prisoners, eh?" and Joe laughed fiercely between his teeth.

The lad's heart expanded, while along every nerve tingled an
exquisite thrill of excitement. He had yearned for wild, border
life. Here he was in it, with the hunter whose name alone was to the
savages a symbol for all that was terrible.

Wetzel evidently decided quickly on what was to be done, for in few
words he directed Joe to cut up so much of the buffalo meat as they
could stow in their pockets. Then, bidding the lad to follow, he
turned into the woods, walking rapidly, and stopping now and then
for a brief instant. Soon they emerged from the forest into more
open country. They faced a wide plain skirted on the right by a
long, winding strip of bright green willows which marked the course
of the stream. On the edge of this plain Wetzel broke into a run. He
kept this pace for a distance of an hundred yards, then stopped to
listen intently as he glanced sharply on all sides, after which he
was off again.

Half way across this plain Joe's wind began to fail, and his
breathing became labored; but he kept close to the hunter's heels.
Once he looked back to see a great wide expanse of waving grass.
They had covered perhaps four miles at a rapid pace, and were
nearing the other side of the plain. The lad felt as if his head was
about to burst; a sharp pain seized upon his side; a blood-red film
obscured his sight. He kept doggedly on, and when utterly exhausted
fell to the ground.

When, a few minutes later, having recovered his breath, he got up,
they had crossed the plain and were in a grove of beeches. Directly
in front of him ran a swift stream, which was divided at the rocky
head of what appeared to be a wooded island. There was only a slight
ripple and fall of the water, and, after a secon