“You never spoke a truer word,” returned Benton, bitterly. “When the morning came, the same waving boughs that witnessed you give the lie to the scout, and then saw you kiss the dust, stricken there by his arm, looked down upon the drum-head court-martial. And then beheld the lash cut long welts of blood on the naked shoulders of the borderer, who had dared to forget that he was a soldier and remember that he was a man. And then, degraded, a whipped slave, he was driven forth a dishonored wretch.”
“All this happened years ago; why do you recall it?” asked Treveling, impatiently.
“I recall the past that I may speak of the present,” replied Benton, a sullen frown upon his face and anger flaming in his eyes. “Did you ever learn the fate of the man whose life you ruined?”
“No,” replied Treveling.
“Do you remember what he said to you, after the lash had done its work and they raised the almost helpless man, crimsoned with his own blood?”
“No, except that it was a threat of some sort.”
“He said ‘your quarters shall swim in blood for this,’ and he kept his word. The man whose back was torn by your lash, joined the red-men, became a white Indian, a renegade to his country and his kin. He swore bitter and eternal vengeance against you, and he kept his oath. When your cabin by the Ohio was attacked, he headed the Shawnees. You escaped only by a miracle. Then, when you had taken refuge in the station of Point Pleasant, he thought of another plan to be revenged upon you. You had two daughters once.” The stranger paused. There was a fearful meaning in his simple words.
“Can it be possible that this human fiend can have had aught to do with the unaccountable disappearance of my eldest child, Augusta?” cried Treveling, in breathless anxiety.
“She wandered forth one summer’s day within the woods and never came back?”
“Yes, yes!” exclaimed the anxious father; “can you tell me aught of her fate?”