By this time he himself was already in torture. On the way the march had been interrupted by an old Indian who was sitting on a log, smoking a pipe and watching his squaw chop wood. The sight of the roped prisoner enraged him. He had lost a son, by a white man's rifle. In a twinkling he had sprung up, grabbed the ax from the squaw, and at one blow had cut Simon's arm wellnigh off at the shoulder.
The ax whirled high for a more deadly blow, but another Indian caught at it just in time.
"Shame on you!" he scolded. "You act like a fool. This man is for the stake. Would you cheat us out of him, when the people ahead are expecting great pleasure?"
Half dead from loss of blood, poor Simon arrived at the village. It was the town where the sullen Logan, once the firm friend of the whites, lived. Here he was eating his heart, with grief over the wrongs done to him.[[1]]
Chief Logan the Mingo walked over to Simon, and surveyed him. Simon did not know who he was; he may have heard of Simon.
"Well, young man," he said, in good English, "these other young men seem very mad at you."
"They certainly do," Simon admitted ruefully.
The dark Logan slightly smiled.
"Don't be discouraged. I am a great chief. You are to go to Sandusky. They talk of burning you there. But I will send two runners to speak good of you."
Simon's heart bounded. When he learned that this handsome, determined-looking Indian was Chief Logan the celebrated Mingo, he thought himself rescued, sure.