"Captain Williamson, we're going to stick it out, Girty or no
Girty."
"You can't do no good stayin' here. Pipe and Half King won't stand for the singin', prayin' redskins, especially when they've got all these cattle and fields of grain."
"Wetzel said the same."
"Hev you seen Wetzel?"
"Yes; he rescued a girl from Jim Girty, and returned her to us."
"That so? I met Wetzel and Jack Zane back a few miles in the woods. They're layin' for somebody, because when I asked them to come along they refused, sayin' they had work as must be done. They looked like it, too. I never hern tell of Wetzel advisin' any one before; but I'll say if he told me to do a thing, by Gosh! I'd do it."
"As men, we might very well take the advice given us, but as preachers we must stay here to do all we can for these Christian Indians. One thing more: will you help us?"
"I reckon I'll stay here to see the thing out," answered Williamson.
Edwards made a mental note of the frontiersman's evasive answer.
Jim had, meanwhile, made the acquaintance of a young minister, John Christy by name, who had lost his sweetheart in one of the Chippewa raids, and had accompanied the Williamson expedition in the hope he might rescue her.
"How long have you been out?" asked Jim.