Twilight came over the Indian camp. Many of the warriors, exhausted from the battle and their emotions, still slept, lying like logs upon the ground. Others sat before the fires that rose here and there, and ate greedily of the food that the hunters had brought in. On the outskirts near the woods the sentinels watched, walking up and down on silent feet.
Simon Girty, prince of renegades, sat at the door of the great buffalo skin tepee and calmly smoked a pipe, the bowl of which contained some very good tobacco. His eyes were quiet and contemplative, and his dark features were at rest. In the softening twilight he might have seemed a good man resting at his door step, with the day's work well done.
Nor was Simon Girty unhappy. The fallen, whether white or red, were nothing to him. He need not grieve over a single one of them. Despite the distrust of Timmendiquas, he saw a steady growth of his power and influence among the Indians, and it was already great. He watched the smoke from his pipe curl up above his face, and then he closed his eyes. But the picture that his fancy had drawn filled his vision. He was no obscure woods prowler. He was a great man in the way in which he wished to be great. His name was already a terror over a quarter of a million square miles. Who in the west, white or red, that had not heard of Simon Girty? When he spoke the tribes listened to him, and they listened with respect. He was no beggar among them, seeking their bounty. He brought them knowledge, wisdom, and victory. They were in his debt, not he in theirs. But this was only the beginning. He would organize them and lead them to other and greater victories. He would use this fierce chief, Timmendiquas, for his own purposes, and rise also on his achievements.
The soul of Simon Girty was full of guile and cunning and great plans. He opened his eyes, but the vision did not depart. He meant to make it real. Braxton Wyatt came to the door, also, and stood there looking at the Indian horde. Girty regarded him critically, and noted once more that he was tall and strong. He knew, too, that he was bold and skillful.
"Braxton," he said, and his tone was mild and persuasive, "why are you so bitter against this boy Ware and his comrades?"
The young renegade frowned, but after a little hesitation he replied:
"We came over the mountains together and we were at Wareville together, but I never liked him. I don't know why it was in the beginning, but I suppose it was because we were different. Since then, in all the contests between us, he and his friends have succeeded and I have failed. I have been humiliated by him, too, more than once. Are not these causes enough for hatred?"
Girty drew his pipe from his mouth, and blew a ring of smoke that floated slowly above his head.
"They are good enough causes," he replied, "but I've learned this, Braxton: it doesn't pay to have special hatreds, to be trying always to get revenge upon some particular person. It interferes too much with business. I don't like Timmendiquas, because he doesn't like me, doesn't approve of me, and gives me little stabs now and then. But I don't waste any time trying to injure him. I'm going to make use of him."
"I can't make use of Henry Ware and the others," said Braxton Wyatt impatiently.