"Never, traitor! Monster! I'd be burned at the stake before I'd go a step with you!" cried Betty.
"Then remember that you've crossed a desperate man. If you escape the massacre you will beg on your knees to me. This settlement is doomed. Now, go to your white-faced lover. You'll find him cold. Ha! Ha! Ha!" and with a taunting laugh he leaped the fence and disappeared in the gloom.
Betty sank to the floor stunned, horrified. She shuddered at the malignity expressed in Miller's words. How had she ever been deceived in him? He was in league with Girty. At heart he was a savage, a renegade. Betty went over his words, one by one.
"Your white-faced lover. You will find him cold," whispered Betty.
"What did he mean?"
Then came the thought. Miller had murdered Clarke. Betty gave one agonized quiver, as if a knife had been thrust into her side, and then her paralyzed limbs recovered the power of action. She flew out into the passage-way and pounded on her brother's door.
"Eb! Eb! Get up! Quickly, for God's sake!" she cried. A smothered exclamation, a woman's quick voice, the heavy thud of feet striking the floor followed Betty's alarm. Then the door opened.
"Hello, Betts, what's up?" said Col. Zane, in his rapid voice.
At the same moment the door at the end of the hall opened and Isaac came out.
"Eb, Betty, I heard voices out doors and in the house. What's the row?"
"Oh, Isaac! Oh, Eb! Something terrible has happened!" cried Betty, breathlessly.