CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE TOTEM OF THE RENEGADE.
A single glance at the dark forms that filled the doorway, and the hearts of the three sunk within them.
They were prisoners to the Shawnees!
At the head of the painted warriors was Simon Girty, the renegade.
Girty’s eyes lit up with fiend-like joy as he gazed upon his captives.
“A keen she-devil you are, to snatch the game out of my hands; but did you think that you could escape from me so easily?” he cried, addressing Kate.
The warm blood flushed the face of the “Queen,” as she listened to the insolent words of the white Indian.
“You are in my power; no human force can snatch you from me,” he continued, exultingly. “A nice trick it was, to pretend to watch my prisoner for me, and then aid her to escape in the darkness! But I tracked you, though, cunning as you are. A fit daughter of a worthy father; but, maybe, my turn will come now, Chiefs,” and he turned to the warriors that filled the doorway, “which of you want this dainty brown maid for a squaw? I’ll give her to one, for her fate is in my hands now.”
All the fire in Kate’s nature shone in the lurid flash of her dark eyes.