“The white boy is trying to be brave, but he is a coward at heart,” began the Indian chief.
To this Joe made no answer.
“Why does not the white boy beg for mercy?”
“What would be the use?” answered Joe. “Long Knife doesn’t know what mercy means.”
“The white boy is right. Long Knife is merciless—and Long Knife does not forget.”
So speaking the Indian chief took a torch from the hands of one of his braves and set fire to the brushwood.
As the flames began to mount around Joe’s lower limbs Mrs. Winship let out a scream of anguish and then fainted in Clara’s arms.
But scarcely had that scream rent the air than there came a cry of alarm from an Indian guard. Then followed half a dozen rifle-shots, and with his torch still in hand Long Knife pitched over into the burning brushwood, dead!
“The palefaces! The palefaces!” was the cry. “They have surrounded the village!”
The rifle-cracks increased, and then came a yell from the throats of fully twoscore of hunters, and Daniel Boone, Ezra Winship, Peter Parsons, and some others appeared. Mr. Winship made straight for the burning brushwood and kicked it in all directions. Then came several slashes of his hunting knife, and Joe was free.