THE
GIRL AVENGER;
OR,
THE BEAUTIFUL TERROR OF THE MAUMEE.

BY CAPT. CHAS. HOWARD,
AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POCKET NOVELS:

• 45. The Elk-King.
• 50. The Wolf Queen.
• 52. The Mad Chief.
• 60. Merciless Mat.
• 64. The Island Trapper.
• 65. Wolf-Cap.
• 69. The Yellow Hunter.
• 72. Silver Rifle.
• 82. Kenton, the Ranger.
• 87. Phil Hunter.

NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND ADAMS PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
FRANK STARR & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

THE GIRL AVENGER;
OR,
THE BEAUTIFUL TERROR OF THE MAUMEE.

CHAPTER I.

STRICKEN OVER THE DEAD.

It was evening among the stately cottonwoods and poplars that lined the banks of the Maumee, and the dying day an August one in the year 1794.

A stag approached the historic stream to quench his thirst.

The proud king of the Ohio wood walked with antlered head erect; but his cautious tread denoted that he suspected the proximity of hidden foes. His eyes swept the wood on his left and right, and the opposite bank of the stream underwent a close scrutiny as he advanced.

Quite unmolested he reached the limpid water, and bathed his nozzle therein with manifest delight. It was a halcyon moment for his stagship.

But suddenly a puff of smoke shot above the clumps of wild pansies on the opposite bank, the whip-like crack of a rifle followed, and with an almost human cry the stag staggered from the water’s edge, quivered like a stricken vessel, then sunk upon the verdant earth, the red tide of life flowing from a wound over his heart.

The fatal shot was followed by the spring of an Indian from the perfumed pansies, and a moment later he was swimming toward his prey. He breasted the current with the strength of a strong man, for he had nothing to incumber him, having left his empty rifle among the flowers.

He soon gained the stricken deer over which he stooped, and drove the scalping-knife into the delicate throat. A stream of warm blood that made the Indian’s hands redder than Nature’s coloring, followed the withdrawal of the crimson blade, and the brave rose to his feet with a grunt of satisfaction.

Simultaneously with his rising, the quick sharp yelp of a young she-wolf rent the dense atmosphere, and caused the Indian to spring from his prey toward the nearest cottonwood.

He never reached the sheltering tree.

The report of a rifle scarce louder than the bursting of a percussion-cap, smote the air; the slayer of the stag halted in his tracks, threw his hands to his heart, retraced his steps with the reeling of a drunken man, and fell with a groan over the body of his victim.

In the agonies of death, he raised his head over the stag’s breast, and his dying eyes caught sight of his slayer; then they closed to open in the lodge of the red-man’s God—his Ka Jai Manitou.

Who shot the Ottawa?

A lithe figure bounded from behind the gnarled trunk of a monster ash.

The slayer of the Ottawa was a girl, rounding the last month of her sixteenth year!

A form and figure, admirably disclosed by the close-fitting garments, were faultless in grace and proportion, and her oval face was beautiful almost beyond description. The fair white skin, beautified by here and there a dimple, proclaimed the avenger the favored child of health. Her eyes were deep blue, like the patches of sky seen through the interstices of the broad leaves, and a mass of golden hair fell over her shoulders like graceful plumage of orient birds.

She wore a close-fitting hunting-frock, surmounted by a doe-skin cape, the edges of which were fringed with beads, strung on thin sinews. Her nether limbs were clad in elaborately wrought leggings of the same material, cut wide at the bottom, which almost caused the hiding of the moccasins that incased the petite feet. From the head drooped the gigantic feathers of the nut-brown heron, and mingled with her golden locks as wavy as the stream toward which she hastened.

At her side trailed the weapon that had dealt death to the Ottawa brave. It was a delicate weapon, quite resembling a sporting gun, but a deadly one, as the dead man before her witnessed. The bore seemed out of proportion to the long slender barrel, which caught and reflected back from its polished surface the rays of the declining sun. The stock and butt of the gun were ornamented by silver crosses and crescents, arranged in alternate order. The first cross was punctured by many holes, the crescent was disfigured in like manner; then the next cross, and the succeeding crescent wanted two perforations, in the lower horn, of being completed—judging from the systematic perforating of the preceding ornaments.

The history of this Girl Avenger let the following pages detail.

A few bounds brought her to the body of her victim, lying across the stricken stag, and as her little hand drew a tiny scalping-knife from her girdle, a silvery triumphant laugh parted the lips and displayed two rows of pearly teeth.

“Ha! ha! ha!” said the laugh. “Another dark lock for my lone home—another puncture for my crescent—another red-man dead before the avenging rifle! How fast they fall before my eyes! When my gun speaks, the Manitou’s lodge opens to receive a spirit. How long will such work last?” and she glanced at her rifle. “How long? Until the last crescent is full of little holes; then—and not until then—the dead will have been avenged.”

With the last words still quivering on her lips, she stooped and wound the Ottawa’s raven scalp-lock around her left hand. A quick sweep of the scalping-knife, and with the gory scalp clutched in her hand, the Girl Avenger rose to her feet.

“Another brave and the second crescent will be completed,” she said, in French, thrusting the scalp into her girdle. “I know you, Jaguar-tail,” and her gaze fell upon the dead Indian. “Once my gun covered your heart—it was many moons ago—but you saw me, and falling flat in your boat, the rapids of the Miami of the Lake[1] bore you from my sight. This is my fortieth scalp-lock. Ha! my mark—the seal of the She-wolf. I’d—”

The sentence was broken by the crack of a rifle; the avenger’s head fell backward; an abortive shriek terminated on her now pallid lips, which a moment later lay motionless on the cold brow of the Ottawa!

From a clump of undergrowth, near the Ottawa’s covert, leaped the burly form of a man, whose shaggy red hair, low forehead, meeting above a short, flat nose, gray sunken eyes, dark and sinister expression of countenance, declared him to be Joe Girty, the dread renegade. He wore the Indian costume, but without ornament, and his crimson handkerchief, while it supplied the place of a hat, hid an unsightly wound on his forehead. On each side, in his belt, was stuck a silver-mounted pistol; at his left hung a short dirk, serving occasionally the uses of a knife, and, as he ran toward the river, he trailed a clumsy rifle at his right.

“Hell has aided me at last!” he hissed, in triumphant glee, while swimming the stream, with the rifle above his head. “Long have I watched for you, my young She-wolf, and while watching trembled for my life. You are fast depopulating the tribe; but now I guess as how your yelp—the accursed precursor of death—has been heard for the last time. Won’t there be pandemonium in the village to-night, when I walk among the warriors and cast your dead body at their feet! Oh, Joe Girty, you’ve did a splendid thing to-day. The slaying of the young She-wolf will make you immortal. Satan remains true to the league you formed with him years ago, and now beneath your rifle, falls the Terror of the Maumee. This— What! did the She-wolf move her head?” he cried, as he bent over his victim.

The eyes of the girl opened and closed spasmodically, but without comprehending her situation.

A crimson furrow athwart her temple indicated the course of Joe Girty’s ponderous ball.

“By George! she’s not dead, after all!” exclaimed the renegade. “But I’m not sorry—be hanged if I am. I’ll carry the She-wolf to the village, and when Coocoochee and Leather-lips get through with their devilish orgies, we’ll have a big fire. I know Indians who’ll walk a hundred miles to see this girl sizzle. Snakes! she’s pretty. What a glorious squaw she’d make for my boy, Kenowatha! But she’s not for him, no, not for him! She’s for the fire.”

A few drops of water restored the girl to consciousness.

She did not shriek when she found herself in the power of Joe Girty. On the contrary, she smiled triumphantly, with a glance at the dead Ottawa, as if to say: “Do your worst.”

“The She-wolf has yelped for the last time,” growled the renegade.

In reply the avenger stretched forth her arm, and significantly touched the records of her vengeance.

“I know what them means,” said Girty. “Yes! girl, you’ve done bloody work; now for the burning. The red-skins have paid dearly for the deeds of that dark November night down the Maumee. I must go.”

He bound the girl’s feet and threw her across his shoulder as though she were a roe; then he gripped her rifle in the hand that held her from the ground, and stepped from the tragic spot.

A short distance up the stream he found a ford, and soon stood on the opposite bank.

To his questions and triumphant ejaculations, the girl never uttered a word, though the renegade rudely shook her as if he would break every bone in her body.

It was a proud hour for Joe Girty!

When from his covert he watched Jaguar-tail shoot the stag, he little dreamed of the rich prize so soon to fall within his grasp.

There was not an Indian among the tribes allied against Wayne, who would not have given his right hand for the young She-wolf.

And she was in their power.

[1] The Maumee was designated the Miami of the Lake in the early history of Ohio.

CHAPTER II.

THE EMPTY NEST.

The scene described in the foregoing chapter transpired on the left bank of the Maumee, almost directly opposite the mouth of the Little Turkey Creek, one of its insignificant tributaries, and between that stream and the present town of Napoleon, in Henry county, Ohio.

Joe Girty was obliged to cross the Maumee to reach the Ottawa village, which was situated near the river-bank, still nearer the site of the town just mentioned.

The evening of the Girl Avenger’s capture was an auspicious one in the eye of the red-men of Northern Ohio. Mad Anthony Wayne, with the butchery of St. Clair’s gallant troops fresh in his mind, had reached Greenville, and was preparing to punish the red nomads of the forests, for their bloody deeds.

The secret agents of Great Britain moved among the savages, and stirred them up to still more bitter hatred against the Americans. There were Capt. McKee, Elliot, Simon Girty, and other renegades equally as infamous, who whispered into the red-man’s ears, until he threw back, with a bundle of arrows, into Wayne’s teeth, the peace conditions his country had told him to offer.

On the night of the She-wolf’s capture, a hundred renowned warriors from each of the allied nations, had assembled at a grand council of war in the Ottawa village. There congregated Ottawas, Shawnees, Delawares, Miamis, Wyandots, Iowas and Chippewas.

To accommodate so large a throng, the council-house had been enlarged, and even then many could not force themselves beneath the birchen roof.

It was settled that Wayne was to be met with determined resistance, and the savages were sanguine of success.

British muskets had been freely distributed from Fort Miami by McKee and Elliot, whose faces, in the broad glare of the council-fires, glowed with triumph. It was mainly their work, for their bitter speeches carried the day when clear-minded chiefs advocated peace, without the needless effusion of blood.

Joe Girty reached the Ottawa town a short time after nightfall, and instead of making his way directly to the council-house, he sought his own lodge, a substantial wooden structure that stood in the outer circle of wigwams. He had slightly altered his mind regarding the immediate disposition of Nanette Froisart—for such was the name of his fair young prisoner. Were he to bear her into the council, unannounced to the assembled braves, she might be torn from his arms by the furious bands, and undergo a comparatively painless death. When, on the other hand, if he would leave her in his lodge, while he announced her capture, she would stand a fairer chance of being burned alive.

The last course he determined to pursue.

He reached his wigwam without being seen, for the women were congregated at the council-house, and hailing with loud acclamations the hot speeches of the younger braves.

The heavy door of the lodge was closed, and the renegade thundered a series of loud blows upon it with his coarse boot.

At length the portal yielded, and a hideous hag, about the renegade’s own age, greeted his flashing eyes.

“Was ye asleep, ye old lynx?” cried Girty, almost crunching her shoulder in his giant fist. “No! ye was at the bottle, durn ye!” and he shook his Indian wife till her teeth chattered as though ague-stricken. “Now, mind ye; touch that bottle ag’in to-night, and Joe Girty ’l be a widderer ’ginst day, cursed if he won’t. Where’s ’Watha? At the council, hey! Good place for the white spawn! See here, old woman, I’ve brought ye the devil’s progeny,” and he held his little captive up before the squaw. “Ah, ye know who she is!” he cried with delight, as he noticed the flash of recognition that darted from the hag’s bloodshot eyes. “Ha! we’ll have a big burnin’ spree, mebbe to-night yit. Now see hyar. Come, shake off that drunken fit, what’s comin’ on ye, fur ye’ve got to do guard duty fur a short time,” he shook her again. “I’m going down to the council, an’ tell the red devils I’ve catched the young She-wolf. Now ye’ve got to watch her till I come back, and, mind ye, Loosa, ef she tries to get away,” and he glanced at Nanette, “send the contents of that pistol through her head. Do ye hear, old lynx?”

“The white Ottawa shall be obeyed,” stammered the hag, glad to get rid of her brute of a master. “My eyes shall never sleep.”

“They won’t if ye hain’t got too much whisky in ye,” returned Girty, “an’ afore I go I’ll jest guard against that.”

As he finished, he threw the captive to his mistress, and jerked a jug from one corner of the cabin.

It was uncorked, and weighing it on his broad palm, he remarked:

“Ye’ve taken a pretty ginteel swag, my red panther, and for fear you’ll go to sleep while I’m gone, I’ll dispose of the remainder.”

With great gusto he elevated the vessel, and for several seconds it remained poised above his lips. He drank deeply—he drank the jug empty!

Then he drew a bunch of sinews from his pocket, drew them around Nanette’s wrists, until the thongs cut into the flesh, and retied her ankles. The last operation accomplished to his inhuman satisfaction, he tossed his captive to a couch in one corner of the apartment. She fell upon her face on the one thickness of bear-skin, and lay motionless.

“Now watch her well,” said the renegade, thrusting into the squaw’s hands a silver-mounted cavalry pistol, a relic of St. Clair’s ill-fated campaign. “If she’s gone when we come fur her, why, ’ooman, we’ll cut ye to pieces. I’m a white devil, as you know, and by my sinful soul, if she gits away from you, I’ll tear your lying tongue out.”

With this he opened the door, and saw Loosa seat herself beside Nanette, with ready pistol, before he slammed the portal, and bounded toward the council.

There was a lull in the nocturnal proceedings when the renegade reached the outer circles of warriors.

Turkey-foot, the Shawnee, had just delivered a bitter speech, burdened with able warlike counsel, and the other chiefs were timid in following such a distinguished speaker immediately. It was in deference to Turkey-foot that the silence—an opportune moment for Joe Girty—reigned.

“Now’s my time,” he muttered, pushing his way through the circle. “I’ll have every Injun yellin’ within three minutes.”

A moment later, he sprung into the glare of the six council-fires.

His presence, entirely unexpected at that hour—though none could divine the purport of his absence—was greeted with shouts, and some of the delegates whom he had known, in past and bloody days, sprung forward to welcome his return.

But he waved them back imperiously, and sprung to the large mat in the center of the structure, from which the chiefs were wont to deliver their outbursts of Indian eloquence.

A murmur ran around the circle, and as the renegade glanced at Simon and the group of British emissaries to his left, he shouted:

“Silence!”

Instantly every sound was hushed.

“I come to gladden the hearts of the assembled chiefs with good news!” he continued. “I am just from the banks of the Nomee,[2] where my hands closed upon the bitterest enemy the red-man possesses.”

Every head was shot forward to hear the name of the renegade’s captive.

“He’s caught one of Mad Ant’ony’s spies—perhaps Wells?” whispered Simon Girty to McKee. “It’ll be a jolly time for the red devils.”

“I saw my captive send a bullet to the heart of Jaguar-tail,” continued Joe Girty, after a moment’s pause. “I saw her stoop to mark his bloody brow—and then—then she became mine.”

Simon Girty gripped McKee’s arm, and threw a look of triumph into the agent’s face.

“Snakes! he’s caught her.”

“Who?”

“The young She-wolf.”

“Impossible.”

“Listen! Joe’s going to speak,” said Simon.

At that moment the younger renegade brother sent an electric thrill through every heart beneath the council-roof.

“Yes, I caught her,” he yelled, “her—the young She-wolf!”

Simon Girty bounded to his brother’s side, while, with a pandemonium of yells, the savages were springing from their seats.

Tomahawks and knives flashed above the warriors’ heads.

“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.

It was common cause, for the bravest of each tribe had worn the She-wolf’s fatal mark—a bloody crescent on the brow!

Scores of the warriors bore torches, which flashed a lurid light far in advance.

The door of the renegade’s lodge stood open.

This was strange; he had closed it, and the wind could not hurl it wide.

By the side of Turkey-foot he crossed the threshold.

No voice greeted him, and the fire had gone out.

But the Shawnee’s torch lit up the small apartment, and revealed the single occupant of which it boasted.

That occupant was the renegade’s Indian wife, and the blood that oozed from a hole over her heart declared her dead!

The young She-wolf was gone!

Turkey-foot stared into Girty’s face so thoroughly astounded as to be unable to utter a word.

Without the cabin, yells of rage and disappointment burst from the Indians’ throats.

When the renegade recovered from his astonishment he rushed from the structure.

“I’ll have her heart’s blood for this if it takes me a lifetime!” he cried. “Where’s ’Watha?” and his eyes wandered inquiringly around the throng. “Where’s the White Fox? Kenowatha! Kenowatha!”

He shouted at the top of his voice; but no Kenowatha answered him.

Where was his adopted boy—his “pale spawn” as he, in his angry moments, was wont to call him?

[2] An Indian name for the Maumee.

CHAPTER III.

EFFIE ST. PIERRE.

Near the bank of the Maumee, and almost within rifle-shot of Fort Miami, stood the trading-post of Mitre St. Pierre. It had been erected by the speculating Frenchman, a decade prior to the opening of our story, and the old fellow had grown rich from the investment. Possessing the shrewdness and tact of his people, he gained the confidence of the savages, who patronized him to the dismay of other and rival posts along the river.

Mitre St. Pierre was near sixty years of age; but his eyes flashed with the light of younger years. He possessed a massive frame, and his little head—entirely out of proportion to the rest of his body—seemed buried between broad shoulders, so entirely devoid of neck it was. He kept no assistance at the Post—commonly denominated “St. Pierre’s Den;” he did the work ofttimes of ten men in curing the skins the Indians exchanged with him for fire-water, and various other arduous duties.

His household consisted of his half-breed wife, and a protege—the latter a young brunette, as beautiful as the wild flowers that kissed the limpid waters of the Maumee, and as gentle as the tame fawn that ate from her delicate hands. He did not keep secret the fact that she was not his child; he told her that, one day, he had found her in the forest not far from a settler’s cabin, pillaged by the Indians. All this, old St. Pierre would say, happened in Kentucky. How often would Effie wander down to the river, and there, seated among the flowers, wonder whose child she was, and whether the story the old trader had uttered so often, was true. She was happy in the trading-post, for her adopted parents—notwithstanding the disreputable names they bore beyond the stockade—treated her with kindness, and she never wanted for male companionship, for the handsome red-coated officers of his Majesty, stationed in Fort Miami, often found their way to the Post, and lingered long in her presence. They brought her books, which proved as dear friends to the Angel of the Maumee, as their uniformed donors.

A great rivalry existed between the officers, and at length the field was left to one who was considered Effie’s choice from the many.

Major Rudolph Runnion was a handsome man, but strongly addicted to the twin vices that beset the soldier doing dull garrison duty—drinking and gambling. Educated at Oxford, when quite young, he possessed a fine education, purchased a commission in the English army, and soon found himself assigned to garrison duty in America. His talents and manners were his passport to the friendship of Effie St. Pierre, and if the girl exhibited partiality for either of her suitors it was for the British major. She was ignorant of his vices, and, whenever convenient, the old trader would speak to her in a tone that told her that he desired her, some day, to become the Briton’s bride.

While the falling twilight beheld the scene enacted in the first chapter, Effie St. Pierre encountered a young Ottawa Indian before the Post.

She recognized the red boy who had borne many messages from the British fort to her forest home.

“Ha! the Angel of the Maumee walks in the evening,” said the youthful Indian, pausing before the girl, and drawing a delicate billet doux from beneath his capote.

Effie St. Pierre glanced at the superscription, easily recognized as Major Runnion’s.

“What can be his wishes to-night, to-night?” she murmured, breaking the waxen seal; and a minute later, in the gloaming, she read:

“Effie—I am in trouble. Meet me ’neath the giant cottonwood opposite the cove. I await you there. For the love of Heaven, fail not to come.

Rudolph.”

She looked up at the young Ottawa, as if she doubted the authenticity of the note.

Major Rudolph Runnion in trouble?

Scarce five hours before he had left the Post, in merry spirits, and while he walked away she heard him singing a gleeful love song, which he had learned from her lips.

“Why does the white girl’s eyes pierce Omatla?” asked the Indian boy. “Does she think that he has carried a forked letter to her?”

She met his interrogatives with another.

“Where is the scarlet soldier?”

“Down beneath the big cottonwood.”

“Is he ill?”

“He is wild in his head,” said the young Indian, touching his forehead. “He walks up and down the river, beneath the leaves of the big tree, shuts and opens his hands, and mutters words that Omatla could not understand. Does he want the white girl to come to him?”

“Yes.”

“Then let the white girl go,” said the youthful Ottawa. “Her hand can cool the scarlet soldier’s head.”

“Omatla, has any thing unusual transpired at the fort to-day?” questioned Effie, determined not to leave the trading-post without caution.

“Now must Omatla’s lips close,” was the unexpected reply, “and he must go to the soldier and say that the Angel of the Maumee turns from him when the dark clouds gather.”

“No! no!” cried Effie, springing forward and detaining the Indian, with the magic touch of her tapering fingers; “I will not desert him in his trouble, Omatla. He is the dearest friend I have in yonder fort, and he shall not call on me in vain. Tarry here until I run into the Post.”

Nodding assent, the Indian remained stationary, and Effie hurried into the structure.

The secret of her interviews with the British major beneath the cottonwood, she had long since confided to her adopted parents, causing them the more to yearn for the match to which they thought the eclaircissements were leading.

“I’m going down to the cottonwood,” she said, glancing at the old couple, as she threw a rich shawl over her head. “I won’t be gone long, and you need not bar the gate till I return.”

Then she stepped across the room, and drew from beneath the pillow of her couch a delicate silver-mounted pistol, lately received as a present from the major’s hands. This she thrust into her bosom, drew the shawl tighter around her head, for the wind was blowing quite briskly without, and left the room.

Mitre St. Pierre and his half-breed wife exchanged mystified glances.

“What can the girl mean in taking the pistol?” questioned the trader, in his native tongue. “She never took it to her love-meetings before.”

“Don’t know,” grunted the pale squaw; “must be going to shoot mark.”

“Shoot at mark in the dark?” said St. Pierre. “If it were light, I’d think you right, old woman; but now something’s up. Mebbe she’s goin’ to shoot the major? You know gals—at least they do in our country—take moighty strange notions sometimes.”

The half-breed wife broke into a loud laugh, which she continued until Mitre’s cheek assumed a scarlet hue, the sure precursor of a whirlwind of passion.

“Gal not shoot scarlet soldier,” she said. “Gal love him; not shoot man she loves; Indian gal don’t.”

Old St. Pierre dropped the conversation, rose to his feet and deliberately took his rifle from the wall.

“Where goin’?” asked his wife.

“Fire-huntin’,” was the response, and the speaker picked up a bundle of resinous sticks, prepared for the purpose, from one corner of the apartment.

“Who carry fire?” asked the half-breed, who seemed to divine the motives that prompted her husband’s sudden activity.

“I’ll carry it myself,” gruffly responded St. Pierre.

Effie usually accompanied him on his fire hunts, and bore the torch. But now and then he would take it, while she dropped the noble prey.

“Let wife carry fire,” said the woman, burning with a desire to follow her lord.

“That ’ud be a pretty caper,” responded old Mitre, “fur all of us to go away and let the red thieves steal every thing we’ve got. Not another word out of ye, woman; I’m goin’ alone, an’ if I see your eyes in the woods, I’ll put a bloody spot atween them.”

Cowed by this threat the dusky wife relapsed into silence, and the trader walked from the Post.

“I’m goin’ to see the endin’ o’ this love-talk,” he muttered, as he hurried toward the river. “I’ve never listened to them yit; but I can’t resist the temptation to listen now, for I tell ye somethin’s in the wind, when a young gal goes out with a pistol to meet her lover.”

The twilight had faded now, the goddess of night had crept up from the horizon, bathing the trysting-spot and adjacent stream in crystalline light.

Mitre St. Pierre crept down the river-bank, toward the giant cottonwood. The shadows that the great trees threw shielded him from observation. The cottonwood stood some distance from its neighbors.

“So you are here at last, mon ami. I feared that you would not obey my request.”

There was an unwonted tone to the British major’s voice, and his face wore a deathly pallor in the moonlight.

Effie St. Pierre noted all this before she spoke.

“Pardon me for mistrusting, as I did, the authenticity of Omatla’s message,” she said. “You spoke of being in trouble, which I could not credit, as you left me so good-spirited this afternoon.”

“Ah, Effie, the clouds come sometimes when one thinks them far away—when the sky is one blue field from horizon to horizon. Trouble is oftentimes an unexpected as it is always an unwelcome guest.”

“You really are in trouble, then?”

“Yes,” and the major looked around to see if the dismissed messenger lingered near.

But Omatla was speeding toward his village.

“To-day, girl—scarce two hours since—I had an altercation with Firman Campbell. You know him—the commandant’s son. In the midst of his cups—inflamed with liquor—he drank a disrespectful toast to you, and I struck him.”

Effie St. Pierre was silent—divining what was coming.

“He staggered under the blow,” continued the Briton, “delivered with my open hand, and when he recovered he came at me with a pistol. It was self-defense, then, girl. I drew my weapon, and, to save my own life, took his.”

A light cry of horror welled from Effie’s throat.

“Oh, why did you kill him, Rudolph?” she cried. “He was but a boy—his father’s favorite, and the pet of the garrison. You could not have disarmed him, and thus kept your hands cleansed of human blood?”

“The deed is done, now,” said the major, “and the ball that nestles in his brain can not be recalled. Of course I was arrested and cast into the garrison guard-house, to await my trial. Notwithstanding the fact that I shot the stripling in self-defense, I will be condemned. I will be tried by partial jurors; I feel it; I know it. It is through bribery that I am here to-night, Effie—here to tell you that I love you.”

The trader’s protege started back at the word, and the criminal sprung forward and clutched her arm.

“Yes, yes, I love you, Effie St. Pierre, and I invite you to unite your fortunes with mine. I have a noble home in England. The Runnions are of noble lineage, and there, beyond the clutches of these avenging hounds, we’ll enjoy the blessings that wealth affords. Come with me. Wayne is advancing up the valley. So sure as he lives he will defeat the allied tribes, and if I am caught here then he will deliver me over to the court martial. In Canada, girl, I will be safe. I’ve strong relatives there, and from one of her ports the vessel will bear us to England. I’ll not burden time with a long love-story, now. You know that I love you, and that is enough. Each succeeding moment is precious to me now. Come, Effie, fly with me to a gorgeous home, far beyond these woods, where man proves a famished wolf to his fellow-man.”

“What! unite my young life to a murderer?” cried Effie. “Never! Rudolph Runnion, and, besides, I never loved you.”

An oath parted the officer’s lips.

“I did not come here to be baffled,” he cried. “You shall become mine: you shall, I say!”

“Back!” cried the young girl, and the pistol—his gift—flashed from her bosom.

The Briton came to a sudden halt.

“Another step, Rudolph Runnion,” cried Effie, with determination, “and the gallant boy you slew will be avenged.”

“Better death here than in yon fort,” hissed the criminal, as his hand flew forward and knocked the pistol from Effie’s grasp. “I have you, now, girl, and before I leave this accursed spot I’ll—”

The whip-like crack of a rifle rent the air; the major shrieked, reeled to the water’s edge, grasped wildly at nothing, then disappeared among the waves that formed the famous rapids of the Maumee.

Effie St. Pierre, stunned by the fatal bullet, staggered and fell to the ground; but scarcely had she touched the earth when a figure dropped from the branches overhead, and raised her in his arms.

The figure wore the habiliments of an Ottawa chief.

CHAPTER IV.

THE YOUNG SHE-WOLF AND KENOWATHA.

“Listen!”

“Kenowatha! Kenowatha!”

The call came full and clear from the Indian village.

“The White Ottawa calls Kenowatha.”

“He may call till he is hoarse. Kenowatha, like the dead bird to its sorrowing mate, comes not.”

“There! he has ceased calling; he is hunting for Kenowatha now.”

“Let him hunt.”

And for many minutes the twain stood on the river’s bank, listening to the confused sounds that the night-wind bore from the Ottawa “town.”

And while they—Nanette Froisart and Kenowatha—stand there, let us narrate the deeds that transpired between Joe Girty’s exit from his lodge and his return with the vengeance-hunters of the allied tribes.

The first speech, delivered after the opening of the council, caused Girty’s protege to turn in disgust from the assembly. He listened to that speech with the blood coursing through his veins like molten lava, and, as he turned away, he determined to carry out a project he had formed long before.

No longer would he dwell among the savages, though a sub-chief; no longer would he be called the son of one who had perhaps butchered his parents. He would that night fly the village; he would seek the advancing legions of Wayne, and avenge the kindred whom he believed to be dead. As far back as he could recollect his thoughts were associated with Joe Girty and his squaw wife, with the death-dance, war-path and forest chase. The renegade told him that his parents were dead, that he had snatched him, then a mere babe, from the hands of an Indian who was about to dash his brains out against a tree. At nine years of age, to all outward appearances, he became an Ottawa. His skin was dyed with paint, he received the feathers of a young sub-chief, and an Indian name—Kenowatha, or the White Fox.

He had reached his seventeenth year now, was faultlessly formed, becoming of countenance, and instead of the black locks that crown the red-man’s head, a wealth of auburn tresses, inclined to curl, touched his shoulders.

“No more will I live among those who strike against my people,” murmured Kenowatha, in a determined tone, as he walked toward the rough cabin that had sheltered him for years. “This night sees me free, and ere long Mad Anthony will see the White Fox among his spies. Oh, that I could encounter Captain Wells in the forest! I will get my rifle. Loosa is asleep—full of his rum, and he is far away. Then—”

A footstep in that silent portion of the village broke his sentence, and a moment later, while he crouched upon the ground, the form of Joe Girty flitted past him.

There was no mistaking the burly figure of the renegade, and the young fugitive noticed the burden that the villain bore. He saw the white face that seemingly looked at him over Girty’s shoulder.

The renegade did not perceive his adopted son, though he might have touched him with his outstretched hand, and Kenowatha immediately rose and glided after him.

Through a crevice in the cabin the white Indian witnessed the scene between the renegade and his wife, and resolved to free the beautiful terror of the red-men, though he lost his life in the action.

For many months he had roamed the forest, hoping to meet the young She-wolf—not to send a bullet to her heart and thus rid his tribe of their pest; but to unite his life with hers—to fly to the white settlements, forgetting the wildwood and its bloody scenes. But she had successfully eluded him, though at times he had reached the bodies of her victims, while the blood still flowed from the dreaded crescent mark.

But now they were to meet under truly thrilling circumstances.

Kenowatha waited until Joe Girty’s steps died away toward the council-house, then he rose and entered the cabin.

Loosa started up with cocked pistol; but when she saw who had entered she smiled, and pointed to Nanette Froisart, whose eyes were fixed upon the white Indian.

“Why did Kenowatha leave the council?” she asked.

“The big pain has entered his head,” answered Kenowatha, ruefully, putting both hands to his head. “He will return to the council soon; but first he must rest. May he lie upon the couch beside the young She-wolf?”

“No!” thundered Loosa, who was just drunk enough to arouse the angry and suspicious part of her nature. “The White Fox would cut the She-wolf’s bonds, and then the White Ottawa would tear Loosa’s tongue from her head. Go back to the council!”

The mad squaw’s quivering finger pointed to the half-open door; but instead of obeying the command, Kenowatha shot forward like a ball, and Loosa rolled upon the floor. Before she could recover, Kenowatha’s knife severed Nanette Froisart’s bonds, and with a cry of astonishment, at the unexpected action, the Girl Avenger bounded to her feet.

Kenowatha had thrown himself upon Loosa, whom of himself he could not conquer, for the frantic woman, sobered by her situation, possessed the strength of a tigress. Seeing this, the girl sprung to his assistance; but before she could lend any aid, the stalwart woman hurled the White Fox from her, and sprung erect.

It was a critical moment for the youthful twain.

Kenowatha glanced at the young She-wolf as he rose to his feet.

She stood against the door, armed with her scalping-knife, which she had snatched from the corner into which Joe Girty had tossed it.

With a cry of rage—summoned perhaps by the thought of the doom adjudged her should the girl escape—the renegade’s squaw sprung upon Nanette. A dirk, similar to the formidable one Girty wore, glittered in her bony hand.

The girl met the mad onset calmly; her left arm skillfully warded off the blow that the mad squaw aimed at her, and her right hand, preceded by a glitter of steel, shot forward.

It was a deathful blow.

The dirk fell from Loosa’s hands; she staggered back, and Kenowatha, who had bounded to Nanette’s aid, caught her and lowered to the ground his adopted mother, from whose hand he had received many a hard blow.

“Come!” he said to Nanette, in the Indian tongue, when they had equipped themselves with their own arms, “the white Ottawa is liable to return at any moment. Shall we go to the river?”

“Yes, to the low place,” replied the Girl Avenger, “and then I’ll guide you to my home.”

Without another word they left the cabin, and in time crossed the river at the same ford over which Nanette had been borne as a doomed prisoner.

Immediately emerging from the stream, they heard the turmoil before Girty’s cabin, and the loud voice of the renegade calling Kenowatha.

When the noise died away, Nanette’s hand stole into Kenowatha’s.

“Come and see the young She-wolf’s den,” she said, looking up into his face, and away they hurried through the forest, silent, and hand in hand.

They must have traveled rapidly for three hours, when the glitter of waters greeted their eyes. The silvery liquid sped lazily, a hundred feet below them, toward the Maumee.

The limestone banks were almost perpendicular, and with her fingers still entwined around Kenowatha’s hand, Nanette began the descent. A misstep would send both to a dreadful death upon the rocky bed of the shallow stream far below, and the descent was extremely dangerous, for the rays of the moon but illy penetrated the branches of the overhanging trees, to show them the way.

Kenowatha trusted in the young She-wolf. He felt that she would guide him safely.

The twain reached a dark aperture that led into the cliff, and Nanette uttered a cry of delight.

“This is your home?” said Kenowatha, half interrogatively.

“My home and my citadel,” responded the Girl Avenger, and a moment later she was leading Kenowatha through a series of gloomy, tortuous passages, in which one not accustomed to the place would be hopelessly lost.

At length the girl dropped the white Indian’s hand, and presently a spark from two flints ignited a pile of bark-linings.

The fire revealed the avenger’s home.

The apartment proved a large and almost square room, whose walls seemed to have been hewn to an even surface, by the hands of giants. The limestone floor was devoid of rubbish, and in one corner of the room lay a couch, several old muskets, camp-kettles, etc., while above them, on strong sinews, between thirty and forty Indian scalps were strung.

Kenowatha heard the bubbling of crystal waters, and tried to discover their whereabouts.

“If the White Fox is athirst,” said Nanette, “let him drink from the spring that bubbles from the rocks yonder.”

She pointed toward one corner of the subterranean apartment, and Kenowatha walked from the fire.

“I’ll surprise the white girl now,” he muttered, as he knelt before the spring, and scooped some of the water up in his hand.

Then he applied the clear liquid—strongly impregnated with lime, to his face, until he felt that the paint had yielded to the ablution.

With a smile upon his lips, he turned toward Nanette, who was cooking a piece of venison over the crimson blaze.

She did not notice his moccasined steps.

“Girl,” he spoke, in the English tongue.

She looked up and sprung to her feet.

“A pale-face!”

“Yes, Kenowatha is a pale-face, though for many years he has been a red Ottawa.”

Nanette took his hands.

“And they slew your loved ones, too?” she cried.

“Yes.”

“Then we unite our fortunes!” she said: “side by side we will avenge the death of our loved ones. For every hair that crowned their heads a red-skin shall fall.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Kenowatha. “White girl, Kenowatha’s life has grown into yours. He will hunt the red murderers with you, and the mark that he shall make upon their brows shall become as terrible as yours. Oh, our parents shall be terribly avenged! God nerve me to the task!” and the youth’s hand was lifted heavenward.

“I swear again, Kenowatha—let us swear together,” and a minute later the cave resounded with the most terrible vow that was ever taken by the enemies of the red-man.

It was the oath of children orphaned by the tomahawk.

CHAPTER V.

ONE OF MAD ANTHONY’S SPIES.

Mitre St. Pierre reached the shade of the cottonwood in time to hear the story of the tragedy at the fort from Major Runnion’s lips.

The old man was thunder-struck.

During the narration of the bloody deed he narrowly noted the manner of the speaker, clearly perceived in the bright moonlight, and he felt that the officer was grossly misrepresenting the affair. If he struck Firman Campbell, as he said, in self-defense, why should he fear the trial that was approaching? Ah! the old man feared it was an unprovoked murder, and, as the officer proceeded, the trader cocked his rifle as though he had divined the finale of the moonlight meeting.

Now, for the first time, he knew that Effie did not love the Briton, and then it rushed upon his mind that she had not forgotten one whom he had driven from his Post, telling him to remain away upon the pain of death.

Almost with bated breath, he watched the twain under the tree, and when Effie flashed the pistol into the major’s face, an inaudible ejaculation of admiration welled from his heart.

“Shoot the white dog, Effie!” he murmured, now thoroughly disgusted at the conduct of one whom he had long respected. “Shoot him down, an’ I’ll carry him back to the fort an’ say: ‘Hyar’s the dog that slew the lamb.’ What!” when the weapon was knocked from Effie’s hand. “This’ll never do. I’ve a say in this muss, Ru’ Runnion, an’ hyar it goes.”

The infuriated major had seized the young girl in his arms, and was hissing his devilish intentions in her ears, when the trader’s gun struck his shoulder, and sent forth the ball with a result already witnessed by the reader.

Mitre St. Pierre had started from his concealment with a cry of horror, for he thought the bullet had accomplished a double work of death, when he saw a dark form drop from the branches of the cottonwood.

Mechanically he executed an abrupt halt, and crouched in the tall grass unperceived by the new-comer.

The Indian—for such the figure that dropped from the tree proclaimed itself—alighted beside the motionless form of Effie St. Pierre, which he quickly held in his arms, and was gazing down into her white face, with eyes aflame with triumph.

“It’s Wacomet!” ejaculated Mitre, springing up from the grass, and bounding to the side of the brave.

“Chief—”

The trader’s touch sent an electric thrill to the Indian’s heart, and the brawny fellow, still holding Effie from the earth, turned upon him with an exclamation of astonishment.

St. Pierre held a clubbed rifle over his feather-protected head.

“Wacomet!”

“Mitre St. Pierre!”

The trader started back at the sound of that voice, and a light laugh broke from the speaker’s lips.

“Ha! you thought me Wacomet,” he continued, in unbroken English. “Well, perhaps my dress does make me resemble that treacherous red-skin. I never thought of that when I painted up, and it’s not too late to mend. You know it wouldn’t do to have two Wacomets in the tribe at once.”

Mitre St. Pierre was silent; but the hate of a lifetime flashed from his dark eyes, and his frame shook with the passion of anger.

“I’m the last man you expected to meet to-night,” continued the disguised white, calmly glancing down upon Effie’s face, with a mingled expression of love and pity. “I was an unwilling spectator to the meeting but lately concluded. I watched him narrowly, and, sir, before he should have harmed this fair girl, I would have sent a bullet to his brain.”

In the silence that followed, the French trader found his tongue.

“Yes, you are the last devil I expected to see to-night,” he hissed, taking a step forward; “and the sooner you leave this spot the better it will be for you, Mark Morgan. Here! give me the girl—my child—and seek your mad—your crazy General!”

“I am the disposer in this instance, St. Pierre,” said the scout, with unruffled temper; “and I might as well tell you first as last that, when I leave this spot, the girl, Effie, goes along. I was following my legitimate business when I came here, and, sir, your arm, clothed as I know it to be with bone and sinew, is not strong enough to hinder my departure with whatever I choose to take away.”

A bitter oath parted St. Pierre’s lips.

“Mark Morgan—Wayne’s accursed spy,” he hissed, “not two months since I drove you from my Post, and warned you, for your own sake, to stay away. You have disregarded that warning; now I should inflict the penalty.”

The ranger laughed, and with uplifted rifle the Frenchman darted forward.

Suddenly, but with gentleness, the scout permitted Effie to slide from his grasp, and St. Pierre’s rifle met a tomahawk in mid-air.