the white man," she said to Areotha. "He has not
given you an enviable reputation. Now we want to hear what you have to
say for yourself."

Reassured by the white girl's kindly voice and looks, the accused maiden
stepped boldly forward, and said in a tone trembling but sweet:

"The pale guide does not like to see Areotha here, for she knows him. He
is more Wyandot than white man, and where is the boat he ever guided
that has not bloody planks? Areotha does not know. Did he not tell the
white man in his cabin that the red men would surround it and scalp his
family, and then right away offer to guide him to the Blacksnake?"

Abel Merriweather started violently. How did the forest girl know that
John Darknight had done this?

"This is insulting, and from a characterless girl at that!" the guide
exclaimed, advancing a step.

"Hear her through," said Kate firmly. "You have had your say; she shall
have hers. Now," to Areotha, "tell us if you are the witch he calls
you--tell us if you have ever decoyed the boats of our people to an
ambush."

"Areotha will speak boldly, though that man may repeat her words among
the Wyandot lodges, and the warriors on the trail. She is the pale
faces' friend. If the bee does not love to gather honey from the flower:
if the Manitou does not love his white and red children, then Areotha
has decoyed the boats ashore! She has spoken, and since she built the
first fire for old Madgitewa, her Indian mother, her tongue has not told
a lie."

Kate Merriweather looked up triumphant. She believed that Little
Moccasin had told the truth, for candor was in her voice, and innocence
in her soft eyes.

"There is an antagonism between your statements," Oscar Parton said,
addressing John Darknight. "They do not harmonize as I would like to see
them do."

"Just as if you expected to hear that cunning forest trollop----"

"Please be sparing with your epithets, Mr. Darknight. Do not forget that
you are in the presence of ladies," said the young man, interrupting.

"Yes, sir," was the tart rejoinder, accompanied with a quick, angry
glance at Kate. "Yes, sir! I will, for I am a gentleman; but I was
saying that you seem to have expected a confirmation of my truthful
charges from the accused herself. I know her but too well, and many a
poor white man and his little family have tasted death in the Maumee
through her treachery. But if you wish to test it, I shall not stand
between. When John Darknight's wo