"Peter Doane!" Caleb pressed a shaken hand to his bewildered forehead. "Peter Doane—but I can't credit that! Peter has sat by my hearth night after night ... Peter has eaten my salt ... Peter has been our staunchest reliance!"
Caleb's glance travelled searchingly about the circle of faces and read there unanimous conviction and grim determination.
"Peter has done growed to be half Injin hisself," came the decided answer. "Thornton didn't swear to no lie when he knew he mout be dyin'."
Caleb straightened decisively and his eyes blazed in spurts of wrath.
"Go after him then," he ordered. "It won't do to let him get away."
The pursuit parties that spread into the woods travelled fast and studiously—yet with little hope of success.
No man better than Peter Doane himself would recognize his desperation of plight—and if he had "gone bad" there was but one road for his feet and the security of the colony depended upon his thwarting.
Pioneer chronicles crowned with anathema unspeakable their small but infamous roster of white renegades, headed by the hated name of Samuel Girty; renegades who had "painted their faces and gone to the Indians!"
These were the unforgivably damned!
Now at the council-fires of Yellow-Jacket, even at the war-lodge of Dragging Canoe himself, the voluntary coming of Peter Doane would mean feasting and jubilation and a promise of future atrocities.