A better dissembler than “Jim” Girty never trod the woods of Ohio. He knew that the great Shawnee chieftain lived in superstitious awe of the Wolf-Queen, and that, upon his return, his prisoner would be given over to the fangs of the wolves. And while he spoke to Eudora he was plotting to get her beyond the village before Tecumseh returned.
The young girl deigned no reply to his words, but in silence set to work to arrange the disheveled locks which hung over her shoulders.
She was very beautiful—the possessor of a symmetrical form faultless in the minutest particular, large, black eyes, lustrous beneath raven lashes, and a wealth of raven hair, which enhanced her transcendent loveliness. She wore the coronet of her seventeenth year, though weeping for the fate of her parents and golden-haired sisters, mercilessly butchered in her sight, caused her to look beyond her years.
The words of Oonalooska shot a cheering ray of hope into her heart, and caused that guiltless organ to beat for joy. “The young hunter lives,” he had said; but what “young hunter” did he mean? Quite a number of “young hunters” had been enraptured by her beauty, though none had she ever bade hope for the dimpled hand that could send an arrow unerringly to the target, and direct the bullet with an accuracy unequaled by many well-known frontiersmen of those “dark and bloody days.”
Among her admirers, Mayne Fairfax had called oftenest at her home, now a heap of ashes, and she had evinced a partiality for his companionship, which had driven the others from the field.
Was he the “young hunter” who sought her in the Indian village?
Her rapid heart-beats proclaimed that she hoped so.
The afternoon was nearing its close when Girty summoned Oonalooska to his side.
The young brave obeyed with alacrity, and was surprised to hear the renegade make the following proposition:
“Tecumseh must not meet the Pale Flower in the lodge,” said Girty, in a low tone, that it might not reach the ears of Alaska, who was within common earshot. “The chief hates me, but he also fears me. Without a second thought he would deliver the white-faced girl to Alaska. To-morrow he will decide otherwise. Not far from this lodge dwell the exiled Mingoes, on whose grounds no hostile warrior dares to tread. To-night, then, will not Oonalooska guide the Pale Flower thither, and guard her until the White Wolf commands their return?”