Kenton and his companion would have a dangerous mission. They intended to apply the blazing torch to as many of the lodges on the windward side of the village as they possibly could, so that the fire would get such a start that it could not possibly be put out before much damage had been done.
Of course, while they were thus running hither and thither, thrusting their firebrands this way and that, they took chances of being impaled on the spear of some furious brave, or feeling a tomahawk come crashing down upon their heads; but so often had they dared such risks that they gave it slight heed now.
Left alone, the young pioneers began to feel the responsibility of their position. There, just before them, lay the great Indian village, with its hundreds of people, and its scores upon scores of lodges, in each of which rested those who were now declared enemies to the whites.
True, there might be found a few whose skins were not red; but their hearts were even blacker than that of any Indian, for such renegades as Simon Girty hated their own kind as venomously as so many snakes would have done. Driven out of the settlements along the border for various crimes, they had joined their fortunes with the savages, and at all times distanced the most cruel and crafty Indian in their treacherous conduct toward the pioneers.
There was no one close enough now to catch a low whisper, so that Sandy, who felt that he must express his feelings or burst, took occasion to say in the ear of the other:
"Can you give a guess where Black Beaver's lodge lies, Bob?"
Now, that was a matter to which the other had himself given more or less attention. When he surveyed the numerous skin shelters, with their three poles sticking up out of the hole at the top, where the smoke of the fire came forth, he had kept in mind what Blue Jacket told him about the symbolic and crude paintings with which Black Beaver had decorated his tepee.
"When the fires burned their brightest I thought I saw it away off yonder to the right," he answered, in the same cautious tone that would be utterly unheard five feet away, especially while that breeze rustled the waving branches of the overhanging trees.
"Yes, that is to the east, and he said it lay there," continued Sandy. "But try to tell me which it was. Can you make it out still, Bob?"
"I think so," replied the other, who knew that Sandy simply wished to feast his hungry eyes on the wigwam thus picked out, and try to imagine that he could see the loved form of little Kate beyond its painted walls.