The action of all these Shawanoes was as if their chieftain and his white visitor were one hundred miles distant. None approached, addressed or seemed to hear a word that passed, though in the stillness many of their words, especially those uttered by the chieftain, were audible to the farthest point of the camp.
The observant eye of Finley told him a significant fact. Allowing for those that had fallen in the attack upon the flatboat, fully half a dozen of the warriors were absent. They were watching the movements of the whites who had crossed the river, and would soon report to The Panther.
The absence of these warriors, we say, was suggestive, but caused the missionary no concern. With the pioneers were Daniel Boone and his rangers, while Simon Kenton was somewhere between the hostile forces. After the late escape of the party from The Panther and his men, no great fear was to be entertained of them.
Mabel Ashbridge, wondering, distressed and sorrowful, sat on the fallen tree, now and then looking around the camp and following the movements of the painted men as they passed to and fro, some of them occasionally glancing toward her with a scowl and gleam of the black eyes, which terrified her, but most of the time her gaze rested upon the chieftain and white man talking near her.
How odd their words sounded! She could hear everything said, and yet it was in another language, and seemed as if they were mumbling over gibberish, like a couple of children for their own amusement, except that the chief most of the time acted as though he was angry at the white man, who looked so pleasant and kind that she was sure he must have a little girl at home.
But strange, novel and exciting as all this seemed, it soon became monotonous to her. Unable to learn of its meaning, she became drowsy, and, leaning over and laying her head on the log beside her, she closed her eyes in slumber.
Thus matters stood when the missionary said:
"The white and red children of the Great Spirit, I fear, will always fight each other. The missionary has tried to make them live in peace, but he can do nothing. The Shawanoes have made captive a little girl over whose head only the moons of a pappoose have passed. A few hours ago the pale-faces made captive the great chieftain Wa-on-mon, but the white hunter let him go free."
The Panther was about to interrupt angrily, when the missionary continued, with the same calm evenness of voice:
"The white hunter did not set Wa-on-mon free because he loved him, but rather because he hated him. He wished to meet him in combat; but when he went to the place where Wa-on-mon promised to meet him, the chieftain was not there. The great Wa-on-mon was not afraid of the white man; therefore, he must have made a mistake and gone elsewhere."