The scout significantly touched his forehead and shook his head.
"I know that, but he has done well so far. He lives by himself in the woods, and must be more familiar with it than any of his people. I'm inclined to believe there is something in what he says."
"I haven't much faith in a chap whose brain is twisted hind side afore, but I don't know as it will do any harm to try it; leastways we've stood here longer than we oughter."
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE NEW ROUTE.
Simon Kenton had spent so many years of his life in the woods and had been among the Shawanoes so much that he spoke their language like a native. The reader need not be told that he was once a prisoner of the Shawanoes, and was condemned to death by them, but was saved through the interference of the renegade Simon Girty, to whom the scout had done a kindness years before. This is the only instance of the kind known of that miscreant.
It had also fallen to the lot of Kenton to run the gantlet, and he had desperate scrimmages without number with members of that warlike tribe. His frequent association with them, his companionship with the extraordinary but unfortunate Deerfoot, had given him a mastery of the tongue used by these people.
Kenton now turned to Red Crow and addressed him in the language of his tribe:
"Arqu-wao, tell me why you wish to prove yourself a friend of the white man."