“Have you not already guessed?” asked Benton, with a smile of terrible meaning. “If my shoulders were bare, you could tell who I am, for the marks of the lash are still there. If you would know my name, a week hence ask the blazing dwellings along the Ohio that mark the track of the Shawnees; the glowing embers and hissing flames will answer, Simon Girty, the renegade.”
Then, with a bound, Girty disappeared in the forest.
Sick at heart, Treveling returned to the station.
CHAPTER XXIII.
BOONE’S ESCAPE.
Almost speechless with horror, the old hunter bent over the body of the murdered Indian.
“One clean cut settled him,” the borderer muttered, as his eyes fell upon the terrible gash on the head of the red chief, and from which the red life-blood was slowly ebbing. “I’ve seen it; thar’s no mistake. It’s either the devil or a near relation. I owe him something, though, for he’s got me out of the tightest place that this old carcass has been in for many a long day.”
Then the scout cast a stealthy glance around him. The clouds pushing over the moon still vailed the earth with darkness.
“I must git out of this hyer, quick, ef not quicker. I won’t give the red heathen another chance at my top-knot ef I kin help it. I wonder whar Kenton and Lark are? I s’pose they must be nigh the village, somewhar. Well, I’ve found out all that I wanted to know. The Injuns mean mischief—they’re mean enough for any thing—and Point Pleasant will receive the first blow. Now, I’d better be makin’ tracks for the settlement. Jerusalem! I hope I won’t meet that awful thing in the wood. Why, my very blood freezes when I think of it.” And the stout borderer shuddered as he spoke. Back to his mind came the likeness of the dark form that had freed him from his bonds in the Indian village; again he felt on his person the light touch of the hairy arm that bore such terrible nails.
“I ain’t afeard of any thing human, but I ain’t used to the critters from the other world. Now, to gain the shelter of the forest and then to carry the tidings of this attack to the settlement.”