“I don’t know what to think of it, gal. Thar’s something—whether man, beast, or demon, no one knows—a-hunting the Shawnee nation. It attacks the warriors, singly, in the forest. Kills them with a single lick of a tomahawk, and then cuts on their breasts three knife-slashes, making a red arrow.”
“Have you ever seen it?” asked the girl.
“Me? no,” replied the renegade.
“It is probably but an Indian fable; such a creature as you describe can not exist.”
“But I’ve seen the dead Indians, though, with the red arrow cut on their breasts; thar’s no mistake about that,” said Kendrick.
“I have never met any such figure as you describe in the forest.”
“Well, I reckon it’s the devil, after all.”
“Father, you understand the treatment of wounds, do you not?”
“Yes, a little.”
“Can you not extract the ball from this stranger’s wound?”