"Dr. Clendenin," cried Miller, "you have come in the nick of time!"
"No," sighed Kenneth, taking the cold hand of the chief, "he is beyond human help. Wawillaway, my poor friend, whose fiendish work is this?"
With a great effort the chief rallied his expiring energies sufficiently to tell in a few broken sentences, of Wolf's perfidious and cruel deed, then gasped and died.
"He is gone," Kenneth said in a voice tremulous and husky with emotion, "and this foul deed of a blood-thirsty, conscienceless wretch, will in all probability be visited upon our infant settlements in a tempest of fire and blood."
"Wolf! the scoundrel is rightly named," muttered Miller between his clenched teeth. "Andrews," to his comrade, "we should be scouring the woods in search of him at this moment. If we could catch and deliver him up to justice, it might go far toward averting the threatened storm."
"Yes, and there's no time to be lost; but the first thing is to hurry home and secure the safety of our families."
"The alarm should be given at once in Chillicothe," said Kenneth, hastily mounting as he spoke; "that shall be my task, and doubtless a party will be sent out at once in search of this cowardly villain, Wolf."
In another moment all three had left the scene of blood and death, and were galloping furiously through the woods; the farmers toward their homes, Kenneth in the direction of the town.
The sun had set some time before, it was already growing dark, and when he reached Chillicothe many of the people had retired for the night.
Coming in at the end of the town farthest from Major Lamar's house, and stopping to call up and consult with several of the other influential citizens, whose dwellings lay between, he was late in reaching it.