"Do you mean Martin?" Simon Kenton asked with an effort, and showing yet greater evidence of being disturbed in mind.
"Ay, lad, Martin Donnelly, and why should you, above all others, show fear at his name?"
"Tell me!" and Kenton leaned forward eagerly, as if his very life depended upon the answer. "Do you mean to say you spoke with that Martin Donnelly who lived some time ago in Fauquier County, in the colony of Virginia?"
"Ay, Simon, the same. He whom you flogged until the breath had-well nigh left his body."
"And he lives?" Kenton asked with a long indrawing of the breath, straightening himself up as does one who has been suddenly relieved of a heavy burden.
"He was alive when I met him in Cahokia, and counted on settling down in the Illinois country, if it so chanced everything was favorable. He left his family in Virginia so I understood; but reckoned on going after them some time this fall."
Kenton leaned against a tree, his face hidden in his arm, and we three stood gazing at him in silence and astonishment until perhaps ten minutes had passed, when he turned to face us with an expression such as I shall never forget.
"If you have made no mistake, John Lucas," he said, speaking slowly, and with a ring of joy in his tone, "if you have spoken truly, there is taken from me that which I believed I must carry to my grave, and from there to the presence of my God. If Martin Donnelly be alive, I am a free man once more——"
"I tell you, Simon, I saw and talked with Martin Donnelly," Lucas exclaimed impatiently. "What is the meaning of your words? Why have you not always been a free man, save perchance when the savages had you in their clutches, as these lads here have told?"
"Here is the story of a man who came on the frontier believing himself a murderer, and doing whatsoever he might to atone for a supposed crime committed at a moment when anger held possession of him. As you know, I was born in Fauquier County in 1755, where my father, an Irishman, had won for himself by hard labor such a home and such a plantation as a poor man could survey with pride. Up to the time I was sixteen years old there came no thought into my mind save to be a planter, and continue the work my father had begun. Then I loved a girl, the daughter of our nearest neighbor, and counted, with the consent of her parents as well as mine, on marrying her in due course of time. Martin Donnelly came into the district, and by unfair means, as I did and still claim, won her from me. I met him the day after he was married. He taunted me with what he had done; claimed that an Irish planter in Virginia was of so little consequence that the first newcomer could take from him whatsoever he had that was to be won by fair words, and continued in such strain until rage overpowered me. I leaped upon him like a panther, using no weapons; and with my bare hands pommeled him until he lay like one dead. Fear took the place of anger; I tried to rouse him; but he lay as does a corpse, and I, believing myself a murderer, fled, pursued only by my own conscience, across the Alleghanies, where I joined those who were pushing forward on the extreme frontier. Since that day have I shunned the abode of all men save those who live remote from any settlement. How often I have yearned to see my father and mother, there is no need for me to say. I dared not go back, believing I would be seized and executed as a murderer; but now I am free to do whatsoever I will, and save for the fact that my word binds me to remain as scout with Major Clarke until the expedition comes to an end with the capture of Vincennes, I would set off this hour for the home I have dreamed of, but never expected again to see."