“Where’s the young She-wolf?” was the universal cry that assailed the renegade. “We will tear her fangs from her head, and her yellow scalp shall dangle from an Indian’s belt. Where lies the slayer whom the red-man has dreaded so long? Show us to her, white Ottawa, that our knives may drink her blood.”
“Calm the howling devils first, Simon,” said Joe Girty. “We don’t want the hull of them to cut the gal to pieces. When they come to their senses they’ll burn her decently. Ye kin holler louder than I. Git up an’ pacify the brutes an’ then I’ll tell them where the gal is.”
Simon Girty turned to do his brother’s bidding, and at length silenced the Bedlamite uproar.
“She’s in my lodge!” cried Joe Girty, “an’ I want ye to act like men, an’ don’t go an’ kill the gal so quickly that she won’t know what hurt her. She’s killed too many of my red brothers to die easily. Now set yer brains to work, an’ see who can conjure up the right kind of torture.”
Deliberation upon the death of their deadliest enemy—one who had entered their villages and shot their braves dead before their wigwams, whose dread presence had made the forests shunned places—was far from the minds of the Indians.
Turkey-foot, whose eldest son, a chief of promise, had fallen beneath the bullet of the Girl Avenger, sprung toward the renegade’s lodge.
“Shall the braves think, while, perhaps, the She-wolf gnaws her bonds asunder?” he cried. “They who think are squaws; who act, men. Come! we will tear the heart from her body, and burn it over red coals. Turkey-foot’s son wears her moon-mark; the father will slay the young She-wolf!”
Joe Girty tried to arrest the progress of the infuriated Shawnees. As well might he have tried to stem the overpowering avalanche.
Toward his lodge dashed the mad Indians, headed by the avenging father.
“We’ll see the thing done, anyhow,” cried the renegade, and away he darted with the avenging band.