rds of warning can be brushed aside by
the lies of a girl like that one, it is high time for him to betake
himself away. You will repent soon enough. Trust the witch and get to
Wayne, _if you can_!"

With the last word still quivering his lips, the guide shouldered his
heavy rifle and tightened his belt, as if bent on departure.

"How do you know that we believe the girl?" asked the settler, who had
not spoken for several minutes.

"How do I know anything?" was the snappish answer. "Do you suppose that
I am blind, and a dunce in the bargain? Warm the viper in your bosoms,
and, as you deserve perhaps, let it sting you to death."

Then the guide strode madly away, and reached the edge of the river bank
before another word was uttered.

The events of the last moment had thrown consternation into the little
camp, and the guide's hot words, mien, and his desertion, seemed to
paralyze the tongues of the fugitives.

But Abel Merriweather, white as a sheet and with flashing eyes, called
out in a tone that halted the guide on the top of the bank:

"One more word, sir!" he said. "John Darknight, I ought to shoot you.
Last night an Indian swam the Maumee and you met him at the water's
edge. There you proved yourself a low-bred renegade, a traitor to your
own people--the plotter of the destruction of my family. I ought to kill
you where you stand!"

The guide did not reply. For a moment he gazed at the speaker and heard
the clicking of four rifle locks. Then he burst into a coarse, defiant
laugh and sprang down the bank like a startled deer.

A few bounds brought him to the river, into which he plunged without a
second's hesitation, and dived beneath the surface.

Abel Merriweather and his friends, with ready rifles, waited vengefully
for his reappearance; but he came up far below and dived again before a
single weapon could cover him.

The whites looked disappointedly at each other.

"I ought to have dealt with him last night," the settler said,
self-upbraidingly. "He will join the Indians, and deal murderously with
us. God help my family."

The party, smarting with chagrin over the traitor's escape, returned
slowly to the camp, to meet a group of the whitest faces ever seen in
the forest.

Helpless in the shadow of an impending evil, Abel Merriweather's family
gathered around him, and for the first time since the flight from home
the strong man's heart sank within him.

The other members of the party looked abo