Yes, at last, reason had resumed its throne, and Alaska was no longer the “mad queen of the Shawnees.”
Torches enabled her to gaze long and deeply into the hermit’s face, before her lips parted to utter his name:
“William!”
He started, and bent nearer her face.
The renegade’s hatchet had brought reason back to its own, even as a blow had hurled that peerless queen from her throne.
She had forgotten the wild life she had led; and when her eyes fell upon her wolves, a shudder crept over her frame, and she motioned for the animals to be removed from her sight.
“Oh! William, I am so glad that you have returned,” she continued. “He did not die—my brother, whom some bad man shot through the window of our cabin.”
The hermit’s face lighted up into a joyful smile, and he murmured:
“Her brother! Oh, God, I thank thee that I am not a murderer!”
“Where is my boy—my Edgar?” and her eyes wandered around, as though they were searching for a particular object.