Jack’s heart beat fiercely within him. This was not his comrade of the trails nor was it she whom he had seen for a few brief moments on that eventful night eight months before. Gone were the mannish garments in which he had best known her. Gone also was the white woman’s dress in which she had looked so fair. In their place she wore the doeskin garb of an Indian maid, draped about the shoulders with a blanket. The strained look of anxiety had gone from her eyes, giving place to a sorrow too deep for words. Jack’s heart throbbed with desire to leap to his feet and catch her in his arms. But, mindful of Tecumseh’s words, he waited.
The great chief did not delay. “A year ago,” he said, “Alagwa came to Tecumseh, leaving the American chief to whom he had sent her. Tecumseh would have given her to his ally Brito. But she swore that she was married and that she loved her husband. Tecumseh would not take back his gift to the American chief unless it were flung in his teeth. Alagwa would tell him nothing. Therefore he has found out for himself. Little by little he has learned all her story. Tonight he is ready to do justice. Daughter of Delaroche! Tecumseh’s hatchet lies beneath your hand to strike whom you will. The young white chief is in his power. Shall he slay him?”
The girl’s face whitened. She took a step backward, catching at her heart. “Jack!” she whispered. “Jack! He is here?”
“He is here. What shall Tecumseh do with him? Shall he send him to the stake?”
The girl’s lips parted; her eyes widened with horror. Then she dropped upon her knees at Tecumseh’s feet. “No! No!” she gasped. “Oh! God! Not that! Tecumseh will not, shall not, do that. If ever Tecumseh loved Alagwa let him hear her prayer. Let the young white chief go and send Alagwa to the stake in his place.”
“But he wronged you.”
“He wronged me not. He was ever good and kind. He wronged me not.” The words were a wail. “Believe me, great chief!”
Relentlessly Tecumseh faced her down. “Why then did you leave him?” he demanded.
“Because he loved me not. He never pretended to love me. He married me to save my good name. I—I—” The girl gasped, then went proudly on—“I loved him and I thought his heart was free. So I married him. Then at the moment came a letter from his home by the far southern seas. He read it, his eyes widened with horror, and he fell senseless. As I bent over him a man standing near caught up the letter and read from it that the maid he had loved was free and was calling for him. Then I knew why he looked at me as he did. He did not mean to do it. He was too good, too kind, too noble. He would never have looked at me so again. But I had learned the truth. He had no place for me in his life or his heart. The surgeon at the fort said he would soon recover. I thought you had sent for me. So I left him to come to you. Nothing else was left. But he did me no wrong. He did me no wrong. He did me no wrong—” The girl’s voice died away in inarticulate murmurs.
The woods had grown very still. The dead leaves rustled along the ground and the saplings murmured as they trembled in the caress of the vagrant breeze. But no man moved or spoke.