e, craftily
reserving his strength until his opponent should tire.

At last, catching the bar on his hatchet, he broke the force of the
blow, and then, with agile movement, dropped to the ground and
grappled Joe's legs. Long before this he had drawn his knife, and
now he used it, plunging the blade into the young man's side.

Cunning and successful as was the savage's ruse, it failed signally,
for to get hold of the Shawnee was all Joe wanted. Feeling the sharp
pain as they fell together, he reached his hand behind him and
caught Silvertip's wrist. Exerting all his power, he wrenched the
Indian's arm so that it was not only dislocated, but the bones
cracked.

Silvertip saw his fatal mistake, but he uttered no sound. Crippled,
though he was, he yet made a supreme effort, but it was as if he had
been in the hands of a giant. The lad handled him with remorseless
and resistless fury. Suddenly he grasped the knife, which Silvertip
had been unable to hold with his crippled hand, and thrust it deeply
into the Indian's side.

All Silvertip's muscles relaxed as if a strong tension had been
removed. Slowly his legs straightened, his arms dropped, and from
his side gushed a dark flood. A shadow crept over his face, not dark
nor white, but just a shadow. His eyes lost their hate; they no
longer saw the foe, they looked beyond with gloomy question, and
then were fixed cold in death. Silvertip died as he had lived--a
chief.

Joe glared round for Girty. He was gone, having slipped away during
the fight. The lad turned to release the poor prisoner, when he
started back with a cry of fear. Kate lay bathed in a pool of
blood--dead. The renegade, fearing she might be rescued, had
murdered her, and then fled from the cabin.

Almost blinded by horror, and staggering with weakness, Joe turned
to leave the cabin. Realizing that he was seriously, perhaps
dangerously, wounded he wisely thought he must not leave the place
without weapons. He had marked the pegs where the renegade's rifle
hung, and had been careful to keep between that and his enemies. He
took down the gun and horns, which were attached to it, and, with
one last shuddering glance at poor Kate, left the place.

He was conscious of a queer lightness in his head, but he suffered
no pain. His garments were dripping with blood. He did not know how
much of it was his, or the Indian's. Instinct rather than sight was
his guide. He grew weaker and weaker; his head began to whirl