fever of the evil spirit was upon you.
Areotha never left you, my father. She watched, lest the palefaces
should come; she shot the deer and gave you food----"

"And saved the worst life in God's world, didn't you, girl?" interrupted
the renegade, displaying more feeling as he drew the speaker to him than
he had ever been credited with.

"Areotha did what she could," was the reply. "One night, when the wolves
went howling down the forest after the fawn which Areotha's rifle had
failed to kill, the White Whirlwind said something that made his child
wonder. He made her know that he took her one night when she was a
little girl; took her from a burning wigwam beyond the big river. She
asked him then to tell her all, but he said: 'Wait till the sickness
leaves me,' and she waited. Now she is here; now she says, 'my father,
tell me all, for in this war the bullet may find your heart, and Areotha
will never know. Old Madgitwa did not bring me into the world; no, my
father!"

The face and voice were so full of pleading that none but a Girty could
resist.

His arm left the pliant waist, and his eyes resumed their old look.

"You are too inquisitive!" he said. "It doesn't matter where I got you.
You are mine, and the man--"

He paused as if he was about to reveal something, which he would rather
keep back.

"My father, the Manitou, may send for Areotha, and the leaves will fall
upon her before she can know who her real father is. Tell her. This may
be the last time that she----"

"Tell you? No!" was the harsh interruption, and all the revenge in
Girty's nature seemed in his voice. "There are secrets which the stake
could not force from me; this is one of them. There lives one man whom I
wouldn't make happy to save my own life, and sooner than see you in his
arms, I would drive this knife to your heart."

With a cry Little Moccasin started from the blade that flashed in the
starlight, and threw herself on the defensive, with rifle half raised
and eyes flashing angrily.

"You will not tell?" she cried.

"Never!"

The next instant she stepped toward the gnarled tree, and her rifle
covered the renegade of the Maumee.

"You've got me!" he said, looking into Areotha's face without a tremor
of fear; "but I did not think that you would ever lift a rifle against
the man who has been so kind to you. Kill me here, now, and the secret
will be kept from you forever!"

There was a spark of hope in his voice, and all at once