ws. Savage after savage he flung
off, until at last he had a clear path before him. Freedom lay
beyond that shiny path. Into it he bounded.

As he left the glade the plumed guard stepped from behind a tree
near the entrance of the path, and cast his tomahawk.

A white, glittering flash, it flew after the fleeing runner; its aim
was true.

Suddenly the moonlight path darkened in the runner's sight; he saw a
million flashing stars; a terrible pain assailed him; he sank
slowly, slowly down; then all was darkness.

Chapter XVII.

Joe awoke as from a fearsome nightmare. Returning consciousness
brought a vague idea that he had been dreaming of clashing weapons,
of yelling savages, of a conflict in which he had been clutched by
sinewy fingers. An acute pain pulsed through his temples; a bloody
mist glazed his eyes; a sore pressure cramped his arms and legs.
Surely he dreamed this distress, as well as the fight. The red film
cleared from his eyes. His wandering gaze showed the stern reality.

The bright sun, making the dewdrops glisten on the leaves, lighted
up a tragedy. Near him lay an Indian whose vacant, sightless eyes
were fixed in death. Beyond lay four more savages, the peculiar,
inert position of whose limbs, the formlessness, as it were, as if
they had been thrown from a great height and never moved again,
attested that here, too, life had been extinguished. Joe took in
only one detail--the cloven skull of the nearest--when he turned
away sickened. He remembered it all now. The advance, the rush, the
fight--all returned. He saw again Wetzel's shadowy form darting like
a demon into the whirl of conflict; he heard again that hoarse,
booming roar with which the Avenger accompanied his blows. Joe's
gaze swept the glade, but found no trace of the hunter.

He saw Silvertip and another Indian bathing a wound on Girty's head.
The renegade groaned and writhed in pain. Near him lay Kate, with
white face and closed eyes. She was unconscious, or dead. Jim sat
crouched under a tree to which he was tied.

"Joe, are you badly hurt?" asked the latter, in deep solicitude.

"No, I guess not; I don't know," answered Joe. "Is poor Kate dead?"

"No, she has fainted."

"Where's Nell?"

"Gone," replied Jim, lowering his voice, and glancing at the
Indians. They were too busy trying to bandage Girty's head to pay
any attention to their prisoners. "That whirlwind was Wetzel, wasn't
it?"

"Yes; how'd you know?"

"I was aw