nto the woods; and he had left
his pursuers far behind, when he ran into the midst of another party
of Indians, who seized him and drove him forward to the town. A second
council was now held, and after Kenton had run the gantlet a second time
and been severely hurt, the warriors once more gathered in the council
house, and sitting on the ground in a circle voted his death by striking
the earth with a war club, or by passing it to the next if inclined to
mercy. He was brought before them, as he supposed, to be told when he
was to die, but a blanket was thrown upon the ground for him to sit upon
in the middle of the circle, and Simon Girty, the great renegade, who
was cruder to the whites than the Indians themselves, began harshly to
question him about the number of men in Kentucky. A few words passed,
and then Girty asked, "What is your name?" "Simon Butler," said Kenton,
and Girty jumped from his seat and threw his arms around Kenton's
neck. They had been scouts together in the English service, before the
Revolution began, and had been very warm friends, and now Girty set
himself to save Kenton's life. He pleaded so strongly in his favor that
the council at last voted to spare him, at least for the time being.

[Illustration: Kenton and Girty 072]

Three weeks of happiness for Kenton followed in the society of his old
friend, who clothed him at his own cost from the stores of an English
trader in the town, and took him to live with him; and it is said that
if the Indians had continued to treat him kindly, Kenton might perhaps
have cast his lot with them, for he could not hope to go back to his own
people, with the crime of murder, as he supposed, hanging over him, and
he had no close ties binding him to the whites elsewhere. But at the
end of these days of respite, a war party came back from the Virginian
border, where they had been defeated, and the life of the first white
man who fell into their power must pay, by the Indian law, for the life
of the warrior they had lost. The leaders of this party found Kenton
walking in the woods with Girty, and met him with scowls of hate,
refusing his hand when he offered it. The rage of the savages against
him broke out afresh. One of them caught an ax from his squaw who was
chopping wood, and as Kenton passed him on his way into the village,
dealt him a blow that cut deep into his shoulder. For a third time a
council was held, and for a third time Kenton was doomed to die by fir