"We certainly will," said Girty.
Then the two older men looked at each other and laughed, a low horrible laugh that made the flesh of Henry and Paul creep.
"Yes," said Girty, "we'll let the Wyandots lead, and then the Shawnees and Miamis and the others. We'll take our part, but I think some of these warriors can be spared more readily than we can."
Braxton Wyatt laughed, too, when he understood.
"That's good policy it seems to me," he said. "We plan, while the warriors do most of the fighting."
"Stick to that, an' you'll be a great man," said Girty.
The king of the renegades stood in a little opening, and the moonlight fell full upon his face. They could see it distorted into a malicious grin of cruelty and self-satisfaction. Slowly the rifle barrel of Shif'less Sol, in the bushes, was raised to a level, and it was pointed straight at a spot between the cruel, grinning eyes. An infallible eye looked down the sight, and a steady finger approached the trigger.
Never, until his last day came, in very truth, was Simon Girty, the renegade, nearer death. But Henry put out his hand, and softly pressed down the rifle barrel.
"I don't blame you, Sol," he whispered. "It would be getting rid of a monster and saving many good lives, but you can't do it now. It would break up our whole plan of attack."
It was one of the greatest griefs in the life of Solomon Hyde, called the shiftless one, that he was compelled to yield to Henry's advice. He had held Simon Girty, the arch criminal, under his rifle, and he had picked out the spot where he knew he could make his bullet hit, and then he must put down his rifle and pass over the opportunity just as if it had never been.