"My father, let the white girl go," Little Moccasin said, venturing to
meet the outlaw's flashing eyes. "See! I have killed the traitor. He
will never betray my father again."

"You served him right; but you were going to take this girl back to the
river when I came up," was the reply. "She is mine, and the hand that is
raised to tear her from me will fall in death. Come, my bird."

He drew the settler's daughter toward him, and as his eyes flashed their
fire upon her cheek, Kate uttered a shriek and hung senseless in his
grasp.

"Now go!" he cried to the mystery, as he pointed over her shoulder into
the gloom of the forest. "Do not lift your rifle against me, for then
you would never know who you are. Go! and follow me not. Don't cross my
path too often!"

She saw the outstretched hand that pointed her into forced exile; she
noted the murderous eyes that darted from her into the depths of the
tarn, and with a final pitying glance upon the unconscious girl, hanging
over Girty's strong arm, she obeyed. For the second time that night he
had sent her from his presence.

"No man ever baffled Jim Girty!" he said, looking down into the white
face which looked like death's own in the starlight. "For this moment I
have plotted. Now I can desert the tribes to their own war, for she
takes away all my warlike ambition. They may not see me in the next
great battle. The hand of man shall not take her from me."

Then for a moment he studied his captive's face in silence, admiring its
contour and matchless loveliness.

At length he started forward and stood over John Darknight.

"Quite dead!" he said with evident satisfaction. "That young girl saved
me a bit of lead and powder."

Yes, the treacherous guide was dead. From that night there would be
fewer bloody boats on the Maumee, and not a soul in the Northwest
Territory was to regret Little Moccasin's aim.

Leaving John Darknight where he had fallen, a prey to the vultures and
the wolf, Girty turned away, and, with his still unconscious captive,
hastened toward his cabin.

The outlaw had achieved another triumph; but the avenger of blood was on
his trail, and on a day memorable in the history of Ohio he was to
expiate the crime which we have already witnessed.

CHAPTER XII.

A THRILLING INITIATION.

Oscar Parton did not resist when his captors drew him into their boat,
which was paddled into the middle of the stream.

He saw that resistance would prove futi