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THE LAST TRAIL (1909) [Part 1]

CHAPTER I

Twilight of a certain summer day, many years ago, shaded softly down over the wild Ohio valley bringing keen anxiety to a traveler on the lonely river trail. He had expected to reach Fort Henry with his party on this night, thus putting a welcome end to the long, rough, hazardous journey through the wilderness; but the swift, on-coming dusk made it imperative to halt. The narrow, forest-skirted trail, difficult to follow in broad daylight, apparently led into gloomy aisles in the woods. His guide had abandoned him that morning, making excuse that his services were no longer needed; his teamster was new to the frontier, and, altogether, the situation caused him much uneasiness.

“I wouldn’t so much mind another night in camp, if the guide had not left us,” he said in a low tone to the teamster.

That worthy shook his shaggy head, and growled while he began unhitching the horses.

“Uncle,” said a young man, who had clambered out from the wagon, “we must be within a few miles of Fort Henry.”

“How d’ye know we’re near the fort?” interrupted the teamster, “or safe, either, fer thet matter? I don’t know this country.”

“The guide assured me we could easily make Fort Henry by sundown.”

“Thet guide! I tell ye, Mr. Sheppard—”

“Not so loud. Do not alarm my daughter,” cautioned the man who had been called Sheppard.

“Did ye notice anythin’ queer about thet guide?” asked the teamster, lowering his voice. “Did ye see how oneasy he was last night? Did it strike ye he left us in a hurry, kind of excited like, in spite of his offhand manner?”

“Yes, he acted odd, or so it seemed to me,” replied Sheppard. “How about you, Will?”

“Now that I think of it, I believe he was queer. He behaved like a man who expected somebody, or feared something might happen. I fancied, however, that it was simply the manner of a woodsman.”

“Wal, I hev my opinion,” said the teamster, in a gruff whisper. “Ye was in a hurry to be a-goin’, an’ wouldn’t take no advice. The fur-trader at Fort Pitt didn’t give this guide Jenks no good send off. Said he wasn’t well-known round Pitt, ’cept he could handle a knife some.”

“What is your opinion?” asked Sheppard, as the teamster paused.

“Wal, the valley below Pitt is full of renegades, outlaws an’ hoss-thieves. The redskins ain’t so bad as they used to be, but these white fellers are wusser’n ever. This guide Jenks might be in with them, that’s all. Mebbe I’m wrong. I hope so. The way he left us looks bad.”

“We won’t borrow trouble. If we have come all this way without seeing either Indian or outlaw—in fact, without incident—I feel certain we can perform the remainder of the journey in safety.” Then Mr. Sheppard raised his voice. “Here, Helen, you lazy girl, come out of that wagon. We want some supper. Will, you gather some firewood, and we’ll soon give this gloomy little glen a more cheerful aspect.”

As Mr. Sheppard turned toward the canvas-covered wagon a girl leaped lightly down beside him. She was nearly as tall as he.

“Is this Fort Henry?” she asked, cheerily, beginning to dance around him. “Where’s the inn? I’m so hungry. How glad I am to get out of that wagon! I’d like to run. Isn’t this a lonesome, lovely spot?”

A camp-fire soon crackled with hiss and sputter, and fragrant wood-smoke filled the air. Steaming kettle, and savory steaks of venison cheered the hungry travelers, making them forget for the time the desertion of their guide and the fact that they might be lost. The last glow faded entirely out of the western sky. Night enveloped the forest, and the little glade was a bright spot in the gloom.

The flickering light showed Mr. Sheppard to be a well-preserved old man with gray hair and ruddy, kindly face. The nephew had a boyish, frank expression. The girl was a splendid specimen of womanhood. Her large, laughing eyes were as dark as the shadows beneath the trees.

Suddenly a quick start on Helen’s part interrupted the merry flow of conversation. She sat bolt upright with half-averted face.

“Cousin, what is the matter?” asked Will, quickly.

Helen remained motionless.

“My dear,” said Mr. Sheppard sharply.

“I heard a footstep,” she whispered, pointing with trembling finger toward the impenetrable blackness beyond the camp-fire.

All could hear a soft patter on the leaves. Then distinct footfalls broke the silence.

The tired teamster raised his shaggy head and glanced fearfully around the glade. Mr. Sheppard and Will gazed doubtfully toward the foliage; but Helen did not change her position. The travelers appeared stricken by the silence and solitude of the place. The faint hum of insects, and the low moan of the night wind, seemed accentuated by the almost painful stillness.

“A panther, most likely,” suggested Sheppard, in a voice which he intended should be reassuring. “I saw one today slinking along the trail.”

“I’d better get my gun from the wagon,” said Will.

“How dark and wild it is here!” exclaimed Helen nervously. “I believe I was frightened. Perhaps I fancied it—there! Again—listen. Ah!”

Two tall figures emerged from the darkness into the circle of light, and with swift, supple steps gained the camp-fire before any of the travelers had time to move. They were Indians, and the brandishing of their tomahawks proclaimed that they were hostile.

“Ugh!” grunted the taller savage, as he looked down upon the defenseless, frightened group.

As the menacing figures stood in the glare of the fire gazing at the party with shifty eyes, they presented a frightful appearance. Fierce lineaments, all the more so because of bars of paint, the hideous, shaven heads adorned with tufts of hair holding a single feather, sinewy, copper-colored limbs suggestive of action and endurance, the general aspect of untamed ferocity, appalled the travelers and chilled their blood.

Grunts and chuckles manifested the satisfaction with which the Indians fell upon the half-finished supper. They caused it to vanish with astonishing celerity, and resembled wolves rather than human beings in their greediness.

Helen looked timidly around as if hoping to see those who would aid, and the savages regarded her with ill humor. A movement on the part of any member of the group caused muscular hands to steal toward the tomahawks.

Suddenly the larger savage clutched his companion’s knee. Then lifting his hatchet, shook it with a significant gesture in Sheppard’s face, at the same time putting a finger on his lips to enjoin silence. Both Indians became statuesque in their immobility. They crouched in an attitude of listening, with heads bent on one side, nostrils dilated, and mouths open.

One, two, three moments passed. The silence of the forest appeared to be unbroken; but ears as keen as those of a deer had detected some sound. The larger savage dropped noiselessly to the ground, where he lay stretched out with his ear to the ground. The other remained immovable; only his beady eyes gave signs of life, and these covered every point.

Finally the big savage rose silently, pointed down the dark trail, and strode out of the circle of light. His companion followed close at his heels. The two disappeared in the black shadows like specters, as silently as they had come.

“Well!” breathed Helen.

“I am immensely relieved!” exclaimed Will.

“What do you make of such strange behavior?” Sheppard asked of the teamster.

“I’spect they got wind of somebody; most likely thet guide, an’ll be back again. If they ain’t, it’s because they got switched off by some signs or tokens, skeered, perhaps, by the scent of the wind.”

Hardly had he ceased speaking when again the circle of light was invaded by stalking forms.

“I thought so! Here comes the skulkin’ varmints,” whispered the teamster.

But he was wrong. A deep, calm voice spoke the single word: “Friends.”

Two men in the brown garb of woodsmen approached. One approached the travelers; the other remained in the background, leaning upon a long, black rifle.

Thus exposed to the glare of the flames, the foremost woodsman presented a singularly picturesque figure. His costume was the fringed buckskins of the border. Fully six feet tall, this lithe-limbed young giant had something of the wild, free grace of the Indian in his posture.

He surveyed the wondering travelers with dark, grave eyes.

“Did the reddys do any mischief?” he asked.

“No, they didn’t harm us,” replied Sheppard. “They ate our supper, and slipped off into the woods without so much as touching one of us. But, indeed, sir, we are mighty glad to see you.”

Will echoed this sentiment, and Helen’s big eyes were fastened upon the stranger in welcome and wonder.

“We saw your fire blazin’ through the twilight, an’ came up just in time to see the Injuns make off.”

“Might they not hide in the bushes and shoot us?” asked Will, who had listened to many a border story at Fort Pitt. “It seems as if we’d make good targets in this light.”

The gravity of the woodsman’s face relaxed.

“You will pursue them?” asked Helen.

“They’ve melted into the night-shadows long ago,” he replied. “Who was your guide?”

“I hired him at Fort Pitt. He left us suddenly this morning. A big man, with black beard and bushy eyebrows. A bit of his ear had been shot or cut out,” Sheppard replied.

“Jenks, one of Bing Legget’s border-hawks.”

“You have his name right. And who may Bing Legget be?”

“He’s an outlaw. Jenks has been tryin’ to lead you into a trap. Likely he expected those Injuns to show up a day or two ago. Somethin’ went wrong with the plan, I reckon. Mebbe he was waitin’ for five Shawnees, an’ mebbe he’ll never see three of ’em again.”

Something suggestive, cold, and grim, in the last words did not escape the listeners.

“How far are we from Fort Henry?” asked Sheppard.

“Eighteen miles as a crow flies; longer by trail.”

“Treachery!” exclaimed the old man. “We were no more than that this morning. It is indeed fortunate that you found us. I take it you are from Fort Henry, and will guide us there? I am an old friend of Colonel Zane’s. He will appreciate any kindness you may show us. Of course you know him?”

“I am Jonathan Zane.”

Sheppard suddenly realized that he was facing the most celebrated scout on the border. In Revolutionary times Zane’s fame had extended even to the far Atlantic Colonies.

“And your companion?” asked Sheppard with keen interest. He guessed what might be told. Border lore coupled Jonathan Zane with a strange and terrible character, a border Nemesis, a mysterious, shadowy, elusive man, whom few pioneers ever saw, but of whom all knew.

“Wetzel,” answered Zane.

With one accord the travelers gazed curiously at Zane’s silent companion. In the dim background of the glow cast by the fire, he stood a gigantic figure, dark, quiet, and yet with something intangible in his shadowy outline.

Suddenly he appeared to merge into the gloom as if he really were a phantom. A warning, “Hist!” came from the bushes.

With one swift kick Zane scattered the camp-fire.

The travelers waited with bated breaths. They could hear nothing save the beating of their own hearts; they could not even see each other.

“Better go to sleep,” came in Zane’s calm voice. What a relief it was! “We’ll keep watch, an’ at daybreak guide you to Fort Henry.”

CHAPTER II

Colonel Zane, a rugged, stalwart pioneer, with a strong, dark face, sat listening to his old friend’s dramatic story. At its close a genial smile twinkled in his fine dark eyes.

“Well, well, Sheppard, no doubt it was a thrilling adventure to you,” he said. “It might have been a little more interesting, and doubtless would, had I not sent Wetzel and Jonathan to look you up.”

“You did? How on earth did you know I was on the border? I counted much on the surprise I should give you.”

“My Indian runners leave Fort Pitt ahead of any travelers, and acquaint me with particulars.”

“I remembered a fleet-looking Indian who seemed to be asking for information about us, when we arrived at Fort Pitt. I am sorry I did not take the fur-trader’s advice in regard to the guide. But I was in such a hurry to come, and didn’t feel able to bear the expense of a raft or boat that we might come by river. My nephew brought considerable gold, and I all my earthly possessions.”

“All’s well that ends well,” replied Colonel Zane cheerily. “But we must thank Providence that Wetzel and Jonathan came up in the nick of time.”

“Indeed, yes. I’m not likely to forget those fierce savages. How they slipped off into the darkness! I wonder if Wetzel pursued them? He disappeared last night, and we did not see him again. In fact we hardly had a fair look at him. I question if I should recognize him now, unless by his great stature.”

“He was ahead of Jonathan on the trail. That is Wetzel’s way. In times of danger he is seldom seen, yet is always near. But come, let us go out and look around. I am running up a log cabin which will come in handy for you.”

They passed out into the shade of pine and maples. A winding path led down a gentle slope. On the hillside under a spreading tree a throng of bearded pioneers, clad in faded buckskins and wearing white-ringed coonskin caps, were erecting a log cabin.

“Life here on the border is keen, hard, invigorating,” said Colonel Zane. “I tell you, George Sheppard, in spite of your gray hair and your pretty daughter, you have come out West because you want to live among men who do things.”

“Colonel, I won’t gainsay I’ve still got hot blood,” replied Sheppard; “but I came to Fort Henry for land. My old home in Williamsburg has fallen into ruin together with the fortunes of my family. I brought my daughter and my nephew because I wanted them to take root in new soil.”

“Well, George, right glad we are to have you. Where are your sons? I remember them, though ’tis sixteen long years since I left old Williamsburg.”

“Gone. The Revolution took my sons. Helen is the last of the family.”

“Well, well, indeed that’s hard. Independence has cost you colonists as big a price as border-freedom has us pioneers. Come, old friend, forget the past. A new life begins for you here, and it will be one which gives you much. See, up goes a cabin; that will soon be your home.”

Sheppard’s eye marked the sturdy pioneers and a fast diminishing pile of white-oak logs.

“Ho-heave!” cried a brawny foreman.

A dozen stout shoulders sagged beneath a well-trimmed log.

“Ho-heave!” yelled the foreman.

“See, up she goes,” cried the colonel, “and tomorrow night she’ll shed rain.”

They walked down a sandy lane bounded on the right by a wide, green clearing, and on the left by a line of chestnuts and maples, outposts of the thick forests beyond.

“Yours is a fine site for a house,” observed Sheppard, taking in the clean-trimmed field that extended up the hillside, a brook that splashed clear and noisy over the stones to tarry in a little grass-bound lake which forced water through half-hollowed logs into a spring house.

“I think so; this is the fourth time I’ve put up a’ cabin on this land,” replied the colonel.

“How’s that?”

“The redskins are keen to burn things.”

Sheppard laughed at the pioneer’s reply. “It’s not difficult, Colonel Zane, to understand why Fort Henry has stood all these years, with you as its leader. Certainly the location for your cabin is the finest in the settlement. What a view!”

High upon a bluff overhanging the majestic, slow-winding Ohio, the colonel’s cabin afforded a commanding position from which to view the picturesque valley. Sheppard’s eye first caught the outline of the huge, bold, time-blackened fort which frowned protectingly over surrounding log-cabins; then he saw the wide-sweeping river with its verdant islands, golden, sandy bars, and willow-bordered shores, while beyond, rolling pastures of wavy grass merging into green forests that swept upward with slow swell until lost in the dim purple of distant mountains.

“Sixteen years ago I came out of the thicket upon yonder bluff, and saw this valley. I was deeply impressed by its beauty, but more by its wonderful promise.”

“Were you alone?”

“I and my dog. There had been a few white men before me on the river; but I was the first to see this glorious valley from the bluff. Now, George, I’ll let you have a hundred acres of well-cleared land. The soil is so rich you can raise two crops in one season. With some stock, and a few good hands, you’ll soon be a busy man.”

“I didn’t expect so much land; I can’t well afford to pay for it.”

“Talk to me of payment when the farm yields an income. Is this young nephew of yours strong and willing?”

“He is, and has gold enough to buy a big farm.”

“Let him keep his money, and make a comfortable home for some good lass. We marry our young people early out here. And your daughter, George, is she fitted for this hard border life?”

“Never fear for Helen.”

“The brunt of this pioneer work falls on our women. God bless them, how heroic they’ve been! The life here is rough for a man, let alone a woman. But it is a man’s game. We need girls, girls who will bear strong men. Yet I am always saddened when I see one come out on the border.”

“I think I knew what I was bringing Helen to, and she didn’t flinch,” said Sheppard, somewhat surprised at the tone in which the colonel spoke.

“No one knows until he has lived on the border. Well, well, all this is discouraging to you. Ah! here is Miss Helen with my sister.”

The colonel’s fine, dark face lost its sternness, and brightened with a smile.

“I hope you rested well after your long ride.”

“I am seldom tired, and I have been made most comfortable. I thank you and your sister,” replied the girl, giving Colonel Zane her hand, and including both him and his sister in her grateful glance.

The colonel’s sister was a slender, handsome young woman, whose dark beauty showed to most effective advantage by the contrast with her companion’s fair skin, golden hair, and blue eyes.

Beautiful as was Helen Sheppard, it was her eyes that held Colonel Zane irresistibly. They were unusually large, of a dark purple-blue that changed, shaded, shadowed with her every thought.

“Come, let us walk,” Colonel Zane said abruptly, and, with Mr. Sheppard, followed the girls down the path. He escorted them to the fort, showed a long room with little squares cut in the rough-hewn logs, many bullet holes, fire-charred timbers, and dark stains, terribly suggestive of the pain and heroism which the defense of that rude structure had cost.

Under Helen’s eager questioning Colonel Zane yielded to his weakness for story-telling, and recited the history of the last siege of Fort Henry; how the renegade Girty swooped down upon the settlement with hundreds of Indians and British soldiers; how for three days of whistling bullets, flaming arrows, screeching demons, fire, smoke, and attack following attack, the brave defenders stood at their posts, there to die before yielding.

“Grand!” breathed Helen, and her eyes glowed. “It was then Betty Zane ran with the powder? Oh! I’ve heard the story.”

“Let my sister tell you of that,” said the colonel, smiling.

“You! Was it you?” And Helen’s eyes glowed brighter with the light of youth’s glory in great deeds.

“My sister has been wedded and widowed since then,” said Colonel Zane, reading in Helen’s earnest scrutiny of his sister’s calm, sad face a wonder if this quiet woman could be the fearless and famed Elizabeth Zane.

Impulsively Helen’s hand closed softly over her companion’s. Out of the girlish sympathetic action a warm friendship was born.

“I imagine things do happen here,” said Mr. Sheppard, hoping to hear more from Colonel Zane.

The colonel smiled grimly.

“Every summer during fifteen years has been a bloody one on the border. The sieges of Fort Henry, and Crawford’s defeat, the biggest things we ever knew out here, are matters of history; of course you are familiar with them. But the numberless Indian forays and attacks, the women who have been carried into captivity by renegades, the murdered farmers, in fact, ceaseless war never long directed at any point, but carried on the entire length of the river, are matters known only to the pioneers. Within five miles of Fort Henry I can show you where the laurel bushes grow three feet high over the ashes of two settlements, and many a clearing where some unfortunate pioneer had staked his claim and thrown up a log cabin, only to die fighting for his wife and children. Between here and Fort Pitt there is only one settlement, Yellow Creek, and most of its inhabitants are survivors of abandoned villages farther up the river. Last summer we had the Moravian Massacre, the blackest, most inhuman deed ever committed. Since then Simon Girty and his bloody redskins have lain low.”

“You must always have had a big force,” said Sheppard.

“We’ve managed always to be strong enough, though there never were a large number of men here. During the last siege I had only forty in the fort, counting men, women and boys. But I had pioneers and women who could handle a rifle, and the best bordermen on the frontier.”

“Do you make a distinction between pioneers and bordermen?” asked Sheppard.

“Indeed, yes. I am a pioneer; a borderman is an Indian hunter, or scout. For years my cabins housed Andrew Zane, Sam and John McCollock, Bill Metzar, and John and Martin Wetzel, all of whom are dead. Not one saved his scalp. Fort Henry is growing; it has pioneers, rivermen, soldiers, but only two bordermen. Wetzel and Jonathan are the only ones we have left of those great men.”

“They must be old,” mused Helen, with a dreamy glow still in her eyes.

“Well, Miss Helen, not in years, as you mean. Life here is old in experience; few pioneers, and no bordermen, live to a great age. Wetzel is about forty, and my brother Jonathan still a young man; but both are old in border lore.”

Earnestly, as a man who loves his subject, Colonel Zane told his listeners of these two most prominent characters of the border. Sixteen years previously, when but boys in years, they had cast in their lot with his, and journeyed over the Virginian Mountains, Wetzel to devote his life to the vengeful calling he had chosen, and Jonathan to give rein to an adventurous spirit and love of the wilds. By some wonderful chance, by cunning, woodcraft, or daring, both men had lived through the years of border warfare which had brought to a close the careers of all their contemporaries.

For many years Wetzel preferred solitude to companionship; he roamed the wilderness in pursuit of Indians, his life-long foes, and seldom appeared at the settlement except to bring news of an intended raid of the savages. Jonathan also spent much time alone in the woods, or scouting along the river. But of late years a friendship had ripened between the two bordermen. Mutual interest had brought them together on the trail of a noted renegade, and when, after many long days of patient watching and persistent tracking, the outlaw paid an awful penalty for his bloody deeds, these lone and silent men were friends.

Powerful in build, fleet as deer, fearless and tireless, Wetzel’s peculiar bloodhound sagacity, ferocity, and implacability, balanced by Jonathan’s keen intelligence and judgment caused these bordermen to become the bane of redmen and renegades. Their fame increased with each succeeding summer, until now the people of the settlement looked upon wonderful deeds of strength and of woodcraft as a matter of course, rejoicing in the power and skill with which these men were endowed.

By common consent the pioneers attributed any mysterious deed, from the finding of a fat turkey on a cabin doorstep, to the discovery of a savage scalped and pulled from his ambush near a settler’s spring, to Wetzel and Jonathan. All the more did they feel sure of this conclusion because the bordermen never spoke of their deeds. Sometimes a pioneer living on the outskirts of the settlement would be awakened in the morning by a single rifle shot, and on peering out would see a dead Indian lying almost across his doorstep, while beyond, in the dim, gray mist, a tall figure stealing away. Often in the twilight on a summer evening, while fondling his children and enjoying his smoke after a hard day’s labor in the fields, this same settler would see the tall, dark figure of Jonathan Zane step noiselessly out of a thicket, and learn that he must take his family and flee at once to the fort for safety. When a settler was murdered, his children carried into captivity by Indians, and the wife given over to the power of some brutal renegade, tragedies wofully frequent on the border, Wetzel and Jonathan took the trail alone. Many a white woman was returned alive and, sometimes, unharmed to her relatives; more than one maiden lived to be captured, rescued, and returned to her lover, while almost numberless were the bones of brutal redmen lying in the deep and gloomy woods, or bleaching on the plains, silent, ghastly reminders of the stern justice meted out by these two heroes.

“Such are my two bordermen, Miss Sheppard. The fort there, and all these cabins, would be only black ashes, save for them, and as for us, our wives and children—God only knows.”

“Haven’t they wives and children, too?” asked Helen.

“No,” answered Colonel Zane, with his genial smile. “Such joys are not for bordermen.”

“Why not? Fine men like them deserve happiness,” declared Helen.

“It is necessary we have such,” said the colonel simply, “and they cannot be bordermen unless free as the air blows. Wetzel and Jonathan have never had sweethearts. I believe Wetzel loved a lass once; but he was an Indian-killer whose hands were red with blood. He silenced his heart, and kept to his chosen, lonely life. Jonathan does not seem to realize that women exist to charm, to please, to be loved and married. Once we twitted him about his brothers doing their duty by the border, whereupon he flashed out: ‘My life is the border’s: my sweetheart is the North Star!’”

Helen dreamily watched the dancing, dimpling waves that broke on the stones of the river shore. All unconscious of the powerful impression the colonel’s recital had made upon her, she was feeling the greatness of the lives of these bordermen, and the glory it would now be for her to share with others the pride in their protection.

“Say, Sheppard, look here,” said Colonel Zane, on the return to his cabin, “that girl of yours has a pair of eyes. I can’t forget the way they flashed! They’ll cause more trouble here among my garrison than would a swarm of redskins.”

“No! You don’t mean it! Out here in this wilderness?” queried Sheppard doubtfully.

“Well, I do.”

“O Lord! What a time I’ve had with that girl! There was one man especially, back home, who made our lives miserable. He was rich and well born; but Helen would have none of him. He got around me, old fool that I am! Practically stole what was left of my estate, and gambled it away when Helen said she’d die before giving herself to him. It was partly on his account that I brought her away. Then there were a lot of moon-eyed beggars after her all the time, and she’s young and full of fire. I hoped I’d marry her to some farmer out here, and end my days in peace.”

“Peace? With eyes like those? Never on this green earth,” and Colonel Zane laughed as he slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, old fellow. You can’t help her having those changing dark-blue eyes any more than you can help being proud of them. They have won me, already, susceptible old backwoodsman! I’ll help you with this spirited young lady. I’ve had experience, Sheppard, and don’t you forget it. First, my sister, a Zane all through, which is saying enough. Then as sweet and fiery a little Indian princess as ever stepped in a beaded moccasin, and since, more than one beautiful, impulsive creature. Being in authority, I suppose it’s natural that all the work, from keeping the garrison ready against an attack, to straightening out love affairs, should fall upon me. I’ll take the care off your shoulders; I’ll keep these young dare-devils from killing each other over Miss Helen’s favors. I certainly—Hello! There are strangers at the gate. Something’s up.”

Half a dozen rough-looking men had appeared from round the corner of the cabin, and halted at the gate.

“Bill Elsing, and some of his men from Yellow Creek,” said Colonel Zane, as he went toward the group.

“Hullo, Kurnel,” was the greeting of the foremost, evidently the leader. “We’ve lost six head of hosses over our way, an’ are out lookin’ ’em up.”

“The deuce you have! Say, this horse-stealing business is getting interesting. What did you come in for?”

“Wal, we meets Jonathan on the ridge about sunup, an’ he sent us back lickety-cut. Said he had two of the hosses corralled, an’ mebbe Wetzel could git the others.”

“That’s strange,” replied Colonel Zane thoughtfully.

“’Pears to me Jack and Wetzel hev some redskins treed, an’ didn’t want us to spile the fun. Mebbe there wasn’t scalps enough to go round. Anyway, we come in, an’ we’ll hang up here today.”

“Bill, who’s doing this horse-stealing?”

“Damn if I know. It’s a mighty pert piece of work. I’ve a mind it’s some slick white fellar, with Injuns backin’ him.”

Helen noted, when she was once more indoors, that Colonel Zane’s wife appeared worried. Her usual placid expression was gone. She put off the playful overtures of her two bright boys with unusual indifference, and turned to her husband with anxious questioning as to whether the strangers brought news of Indians. Upon being assured that such was not the case, she looked relieved, and explained to Helen that she had seen armed men come so often to consult the colonel regarding dangerous missions and expeditions, that the sight of a stranger caused her unspeakable dread.

“I am accustomed to danger, yet I can never control my fears for my husband and children,” said Mrs. Zane. “The older I grow the more of a coward I am. Oh! this border life is sad for women. Only a little while ago my brother Samuel McColloch was shot and scalped right here on the river bank. He was going to the spring for a bucket of water. I lost another brother in almost the same way. Every day during the summer a husband and a father fall victim to some murderous Indian. My husband will go in the same way some day. The border claims them all.”

“Bessie, you must not show your fears to our new friend. And, Miss Helen, don’t believe she’s the coward she would make out,” said the colonel’s sister smilingly.

“Betty is right, Bess, don’t frighten her,” said Colonel Zane. “I’m afraid I talked too much today. But, Miss Helen, you were so interested, and are such a good listener, that I couldn’t refrain. Once for all let me say that you will no doubt see stirring life here; but there is little danger of its affecting you. To be sure I think you’ll have troubles; but not with Indians or outlaws.”

He winked at his wife and sister. At first Helen did not understand his sally, but then she blushed red all over her fair face.

Some time after that, while unpacking her belongings, she heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs on the rocky road, accompanied by loud voices. Running to the window, she saw a group of men at the gate.

“Miss Sheppard, will you come out?” called Colonel Zane’s sister from the door. “My brother Jonathan has returned.”

Helen joined Betty at the door, and looked over her shoulder.

“Wal, Jack, ye got two on ’em, anyways,” drawled a voice which she recognized as that of Elsing’s.

A man, lithe and supple, slipped from the back of one of the horses, and, giving the halter to Elsing with a single word, turned and entered the gate. Colonel Zane met him there.

“Well, Jonathan, what’s up?”

“There’s hell to pay,” was the reply, and the speaker’s voice rang clear and sharp.

Colonel Zane laid his hand on his brother’s shoulder, and thus they stood for a moment, singularly alike, and yet the sturdy pioneer was, somehow, far different from the dark-haired borderman.

“I thought we’d trouble in store from the look on your face,” said the colonel calmly. “I hope you haven’t very bad news on the first day, for our old friends from Virginia.”

“Jonathan,” cried Betty when he did not answer the colonel. At her call he half turned, and his dark eyes, steady, strained like those of a watching deer, sought his sister’s face.

“Betty, old Jake Lane was murdered by horse thieves yesterday, and Mabel Lane is gone.”

“Oh!” gasped Betty; but she said nothing more.

Colonel Zane cursed inaudibly.

“You know, Eb, I tried to keep Lane in the settlement for Mabel’s sake. But he wanted to work that farm. I believe horse-stealing wasn’t as much of an object as the girl. Pretty women are bad for the border, or any other place, I guess. Wetzel has taken the trail, and I came in because I’ve serious suspicions—I’ll explain to you alone.”

The borderman bowed gravely to Helen, with a natural grace, and yet a manner that sat awkwardly upon him. The girl, slightly flushed, and somewhat confused by this meeting with the man around whom her romantic imagination had already woven a story, stood in the doorway after giving him a fleeting glance, the fairest, sweetest picture of girlish beauty ever seen.

The men went into the house; but their voices came distinctly through the door.

“Eb, if Bing Legget or Girty ever see that big-eyed lass, they’ll have her even if Fort Henry has to be burned, an’ in case they do get her, Wetzel an’ I’ll have taken our last trail.”

CHAPTER III

Supper over, Colonel Zane led his guests to a side porch, where they were soon joined by Mrs. Zane and Betty. The host’s two boys, Noah and Sammy, who had preceded them, were now astride the porch-rail and, to judge by their antics, were riding wild Indian mustangs.

“It’s quite cool,” said Colonel Zane; “but I want you to see the sunset in the valley. A good many of your future neighbors may come over tonight for a word of welcome. It’s the border custom.”

He was about to seat himself by the side of Mr. Sheppard, on a rustic bench, when a Negro maid appeared in the doorway carrying a smiling, black-eyed baby. Colonel Zane took the child and, holding it aloft, said with fatherly pride:

“This is Rebecca Zane, the first girl baby born to the Zanes, and destined to be the belle of the border.”

“May I have her?” asked Helen softly, holding out her arms. She took the child, and placed it upon her knee where its look of solemnity soon changed to one of infantile delight.

“Here come Nell and Jim,” said Mrs. Zane, pointing toward the fort.

“Yes, and there comes my brother Silas with his wife, too,” added Colonel Zane. “The first couple are James Douns, our young minister, and Nell, his wife. They came out here a year or so ago. James had a brother Joe, the finest young fellow who ever caught the border fever. He was killed by one of the Girtys. His was a wonderful story, and some day you shall hear about the parson and his wife.”

“What’s the border fever?” asked Mr. Sheppard.

“It’s what brought you out here,” replied Colonel Zane with a hearty laugh.

Helen gazed with interest at the couple now coming into the yard, and when they gained the porch she saw that the man was big and tall, with a frank, manly bearing, while his wife was a slender little woman with bright, sunny hair, and a sweet, smiling face. They greeted Helen and her father cordially.

Next came Silas Zane, a typical bronzed and bearded pioneer, with his buxom wife. Presently a little group of villagers joined the party. They were rugged men, clad in faded buckskins, and sober-faced women who wore dresses of plain gray linsey. They welcomed the newcomers with simple, homely courtesy. Then six young frontiersmen appeared from around a corner of the cabin, advancing hesitatingly. To Helen they all looked alike, tall, awkward, with brown faces and big hands. When Colonel Zane cheerily cried out to them, they stumbled forward with evident embarrassment, each literally crushing Helen’s hand in his horny palm. Afterward they leaned on the rail and stole glances at her.

Soon a large number of villagers were on the porch or in the yard. After paying their respects to Helen and her father they took part in a general conversation. Two or three girls, the latest callers, were surrounded by half a dozen young fellows, and their laughter sounded high above the hum of voices.

Helen gazed upon this company with mingled feelings of relief and pleasure. She had been more concerned regarding the young people with whom her lot might be cast, than the dangers of which others had told. She knew that on the border there was no distinction of rank. Though she came of an old family, and, during her girlhood, had been surrounded by refinement, even luxury, she had accepted cheerfully the reverses of fortune, and was determined to curb the pride which had been hers. It was necessary she should have friends. Warm-hearted, impulsive and loving, she needed to have around her those in whom she could confide. Therefore it was with sincere pleasure she understood how groundless were her fears and knew that if she did not find good, true friends the fault would be her own. She saw at a glance that the colonel’s widowed sister was her equal, perhaps her superior, in education and breeding, while Nellie Douns was as well-bred and gracious a little lady as she had ever met. Then, the other girls, too, were charming, with frank wholesomeness and freedom.

Concerning the young men, of whom there were about a dozen, Helen had hardly arrived at a conclusion. She liked the ruggedness, the signs of honest worth which clung to them. Despite her youth, she had been much sought after because of her personal attractions, and had thus added experience to the natural keen intuition all women possess. The glances of several of the men, particularly the bold regard of one Roger Brandt, whom Colonel Zane introduced, she had seen before, and learned to dislike. On the whole, however, she was delighted with the prospect of new friends and future prosperity, and she felt even greater pleasure in the certainty that her father shared her gratification.

Suddenly she became aware that the conversation had ceased. She looked up to see the tall, lithe form of Jonathan Zane as he strode across the porch. She could see that a certain constraint had momentarily fallen upon the company. It was an involuntary acknowledgment of the borderman’s presence, of a presence that worked on all alike with a subtle, strong magnetism.

“Ah, Jonathan, come out to see the sunset? It’s unusually fine tonight,” said Colonel Zane.

With hardly more than a perceptible bow to those present, the borderman took a seat near the rail, and, leaning upon it, directed his gaze westward.

Helen sat so near she could have touched him. She was conscious of the same strange feeling, and impelling sense of power, which had come upon her so strongly at first sight of him. More than that, a lively interest had been aroused in her. This borderman was to her a new and novel character. She was amused at learning that here was a young man absolutely indifferent to the charms of the opposite sex, and although hardly admitting such a thing, she believed it would be possible to win him from his indifference. On raising her eyelids, it was with the unconcern which a woman feigns when suspecting she is being regarded with admiring eyes. But Jonathan Zane might not have known of her presence, for all the attention he paid her. Therefore, having a good opportunity to gaze at this borderman of daring deeds, Helen regarded him closely.

He was clad from head to foot in smooth, soft buckskin which fitted well his powerful frame. Beaded moccasins, leggings bound high above the knees, hunting coat laced and fringed, all had the neat, tidy appearance due to good care. He wore no weapons. His hair fell in a raven mass over his shoulders. His profile was regular, with a long, straight nose, strong chin, and eyes black as night. They were now fixed intently on the valley. The whole face gave an impression of serenity, of calmness.

Helen was wondering if the sad, almost stern, tranquility of that face ever changed, when the baby cooed and held out its chubby little hands. Jonathan’s smile, which came quickly, accompanied by a warm light in the eyes, relieved Helen of an unaccountable repugnance she had begun to feel toward the borderman. That smile, brief as a flash, showed his gentle kindness and told that he was not a creature who had set himself apart from human life and love.

As he took little Rebecca, one of his hands touched Helen’s. If he had taken heed of the contact, as any ordinary man might well have, she would, perhaps, have thought nothing about it, but because he did not appear to realize that her hand had been almost inclosed in his, she could not help again feeling his singular personality. She saw that this man had absolutely no thought of her. At the moment this did not awaken resentment, for with all her fire and pride she was not vain; but amusement gave place to a respect which came involuntarily.

Little Rebecca presently manifested the faithlessness peculiar to her sex, and had no sooner been taken upon Jonathan’s knee than she cried out to go back to Helen.

“Girls are uncommon coy critters,” said he, with a grave smile in his eyes. He handed back the child, and once more was absorbed in the setting sun.

Helen looked down the valley to behold the most beautiful spectacle she had ever seen. Between the hills far to the west, the sky flamed with a red and gold light. The sun was poised above the river, and the shimmering waters merged into a ruddy horizon. Long rays of crimson fire crossed the smooth waters. A few purple clouds above caught the refulgence, until aided by the delicate rose and blue space beyond, they became many hued ships sailing on a rainbow sea. Each second saw a gorgeous transformation. Slowly the sun dipped into the golden flood; one by one the clouds changed from crimson to gold, from gold to rose, and then to gray; slowly all the tints faded until, as the sun slipped out of sight, the brilliance gave way to the soft afterglow of warm lights. These in turn slowly toned down into gray twilight.

Helen retired to her room soon afterward, and, being unusually thoughtful, sat down by the window. She reviewed the events of this first day of her new life on the border. Her impressions had been so many, so varied, that she wanted to distinguish them. First she felt glad, with a sweet, warm thankfulness, that her father seemed so happy, so encouraged by the outlook. Breaking old ties had been, she knew, no child’s play for him. She realized also that it had been done solely because there had been nothing left to offer her in the old home, and in a new one were hope and possibilities. Then she was relieved at getting away from the attentions of a man whose persistence had been most annoying to her. From thoughts of her father, and the old life, she came to her new friends of the present. She was so grateful for their kindness. She certainly would do all in her power to win and keep their esteem.

Somewhat of a surprise was it to her, that she reserved for Jonathan Zane the last and most prominent place in her meditations. She suddenly asked herself how she regarded this fighting borderman. She recalled her unbounded enthusiasm for the man as Colonel Zane had told of him; then her first glimpse, and her surprise and admiration at the lithe-limbed young giant; then incredulity, amusement, and respect followed in swift order, after which an unaccountable coldness that was almost resentment. Helen was forced to admit that she did not know how to regard him, but surely he was a man, throughout every inch of his superb frame, and one who took life seriously, with neither thought nor time for the opposite sex. And this last brought a blush to her cheek, for she distinctly remembered she had expected, if not admiration, more than passing notice from this hero of the border.

Presently she took a little mirror from a table near where she sat. Holding it to catch the fast-fading light, she studied her face seriously.

“Helen Sheppard, I think on the occasion of your arrival in a new country a little plain talk will be wholesome. Somehow or other, perhaps because of a crowd of idle men back there in the colonies, possibly from your own misguided fancy, you imagined you were fair to look at. It is well to be undeceived.”

Scorn spoke in Helen’s voice. She was angry because of having been interested in a man, and allowed that interest to betray her into a girlish expectation that he would treat her as all other men had. The mirror, even in the dim light, spoke more truly than she, for it caught the golden tints of her luxuriant hair, the thousand beautiful shadows in her great, dark eyes, the white glory of a face fair as a star, and the swelling outline of neck and shoulders.

With a sudden fiery impetuosity she flung the glass to the floor, where it was broken into several pieces.

“How foolish of me! What a temper I have!” she exclaimed repentantly. “I’m glad I have another glass. Wouldn’t Mr. Jonathan Zane, borderman, Indian fighter, hero of a hundred battles and never a sweetheart, be flattered? No, most decidedly he wouldn’t. He never looked at me. I don’t think I expected that; I’m sure I didn’t want it; but still he might have—Oh! what am I thinking, and he a stranger?”

Before Helen lost herself in slumber on that eventful evening, she vowed to ignore the borderman; assured herself that she did not want to see him again, and, rather inconsistently, that she would cure him of his indifference.

* * * *

When Colonel Zane’s guests had retired, and the villagers were gone to their homes, he was free to consult with Jonathan.

“Well, Jack,” he said, “I’m ready to hear about the horse thieves.”

“Wetzel makes it out the man who’s runnin’ this hoss-stealin’ is located right here in Fort Henry,” answered the borderman.

The colonel had lived too long on the frontier to show surprise; he hummed a tune while the genial expression faded slowly from his face.

“Last count there were one hundred and ten men at the fort,” he replied thoughtfully. “I know over a hundred, and can trust them. There are some new fellows on the boats, and several strangers hanging round Metzar’s.”

“’Pears to Lew an’ me that this fellar is a slick customer, an’ one who’s been here long enough to know our hosses an’ where we keep them.”

“I see. Like Miller, who fooled us all, even Betty, when he stole our powder and then sold us to Girty,” rejoined Colonel Zane grimly.

“Exactly, only this fellar is slicker an’ more desperate than Miller.”

“Right you are, Jack, for the man who is trusted and betrays us, must be desperate. Does he realize what he’ll get if we ever find out, or is he underrating us?”

“He knows all right, an’ is matchin’ his cunnin’ against our’n.”

“Tell me what you and Wetzel learned.”

The borderman proceeded to relate the events that had occurred during a recent tramp in the forest with Wetzel. While returning from a hunt in a swamp several miles over the ridge, back of Fort Henry, they ran across the trail of three Indians. They followed this until darkness set in, when both laid down to rest and wait for the early dawn, that time most propitious for taking the savage by surprise. On resuming the trail they found that other Indians had joined the party they were tracking. To the bordermen this was significant of some unusual activity directed toward the settlement. Unable to learn anything definite from the moccasin traces, they hurried up on the trail to find that the Indians had halted.

Wetzel and Jonathan saw from their covert that the savages had a woman prisoner. A singular feature about it all was that the Indians remained in the same place all day, did not light a camp-fire, and kept a sharp lookout. The bordermen crept up as close as safe, and remained on watch during the day and night.

Early next morning, when the air was fading from black to gray, the silence was broken by the snapping of twigs and a tremor of the ground. The bordermen believed another company of Indians was approaching; but they soon saw it was a single white man leading a number of horses. He departed before daybreak. Wetzel and Jonathan could not get a clear view of him owing to the dim light; but they heard his voice, and afterwards found the imprint of his moccasins. They did, however, recognize the six horses as belonging to settlers in Yellow Creek.

While Jonathan and Wetzel were consulting as to what it was best to do, the party of Indians divided, four going directly west, and the others north. Wetzel immediately took the trail of the larger party with the prisoner and four of the horses. Jonathan caught two of the animals which the Indians had turned loose, and tied them in the forest. He then started after the three Indians who had gone northward.

“Well?” Colonel Zane said impatiently, when Jonathan hesitated in his story.

“One got away,” he said reluctantly. “I barked him as he was runnin’ like a streak through the bushes, an’ judged that he was hard hit. I got the hosses, an’ turned back on the trail of the white man.”

“Where did it end?”

“In that hard-packed path near the blacksmith shop. An’ the fellar steps as light as an Injun.”

“He’s here, then, sure as you’re born. We’ve lost no horses yet, but last week old Sam heard a noise in the barn, and on going there found Betty’s mare out of her stall.”

“Some one as knows the lay of the land had been after her,” suggested Jonathan.

“You can bet on that. We’ve got to find him before we lose all the fine horse-flesh we own. Where do these stolen animals go? Indians would steal any kind; but this thief takes only the best.”

“I’m to meet Wetzel on the ridge soon, an’ then we’ll know, for he’s goin’ to find out where the hosses are taken.”

“That’ll help some. On the way back you found where the white girl had been taken from. Murdered father, burned cabin, the usual deviltry.”

“Exactly.”

“Poor Mabel! Do you think this white thief had anything to do with carrying her away?”

“No. Wetzel says that’s Bing Legget’s work. The Shawnees were members of his gang.”

“Well, Jack, what’ll I do?”

“Keep quiet an’ wait,” was the borderman’s answer.

Colonel Zane, old pioneer and frontiersman though he was, shuddered as he went to his room. His brother’s dark look, and his deadly calmness, were significant.

CHAPTER IV

To those few who saw Jonathan Zane in the village, it seemed as if he was in his usual quiet and dreamy state. The people were accustomed to his silence, and long since learned that what little time he spent in the settlement was not given to sociability. In the morning he sometimes lay with Colonel Zane’s dog, Chief, by the side of a spring under an elm tree, and in the afternoon strolled aimlessly along the river bluff, or on the hillside. At night he sat on his brother’s porch smoking a long Indian pipe. Since that day, now a week past, when he had returned with the stolen horses, his movements and habits were precisely what would have been expected of an unsuspicious borderman.

In reality, however, Jonathan was not what he seemed. He knew all that was going on in the settlement. Hardly a bird could have entered the clearing unobserved.

At night, after all the villagers were in bed, he stole cautiously about the stockade, silencing with familiar word the bristling watch-hounds, and went from barn to barn, ending his stealthy tramp at the corral where Colonel Zane kept his thoroughbreds.

But all this scouting by night availed nothing. No unusual event occurred, not even the barking of a dog, a suspicious rustling among the thickets, or whistling of a night-hawk had been heard.

Vainly the borderman strained ears to catch some low night-signal given by waiting Indians to the white traitor within the settlement. By day there was even less to attract the sharp-eyed watcher. The clumsy river boats, half raft, half sawn lumber, drifted down the Ohio on their first and last voyage, discharged their cargoes of grain, liquor, or merchandise, and were broken up. Their crews came back on the long overland journey to Fort Pitt, there to man another craft. The garrison at the fort performed their customary duties; the pioneers tilled the fields; the blacksmith scattered sparks, the wheelwright worked industriously at his bench, and the housewives attended to their many cares. No strangers arrived at Fort Henry. The quiet life of the village was uninterrupted.

Near sunset of a long day Jonathan strolled down the sandy, well-trodden path toward Metzar’s inn. He did not drink, and consequently seldom visited the rude, dark, ill-smelling bar-room. When occasion demanded his presence there, he was evidently not welcome. The original owner, a sturdy soldier and pioneer, came to Fort Henry when Colonel Zane founded the settlement, and had been killed during Girty’s last attack. His successor, another Metzar, was, according to Jonathan’s belief, as bad as the whiskey he dispensed. More than one murder had been committed at the inn; countless fatal knife and tomahawk fights had stained red the hard clay floor; and more than one desperate character had been harbored there. Once Colonel Zane sent Wetzel there to invite a thief and outlaw to quit the settlement, with the not unexpected result that it became necessary the robber be carried out.

Jonathan thought of the bad name the place bore all over the frontier, and wondered if Metzar could tell anything about the horse-thieves. When the borderman bent his tall frame to enter the low-studded door he fancied he saw a dark figure disappear into a room just behind the bar. A roughly-clad, heavily-bearded man turned hastily at the same moment.

“Hullo,” he said gruffly.

“H’ are you, Metzar. I just dropped in to see if I could make a trade for your sorrel mare,” replied Jonathan. Being well aware that the innkeeper would not part with his horse, the borderman had made this announcement as his reason for entering the bar-room.

“Nope, I’ll allow you can’t,” replied Metzar.

As he turned to go, Jonathan’s eyes roamed around the bar-room. Several strangers of shiftless aspect bleared at him.

“They wouldn’t steal a pumpkin,” muttered Jonathan to himself as he left the inn. Then he added suspiciously, “Metzar was talkin’ to someone, an’ ’peared uneasy. I never liked Metzar. He’ll bear watchin’.”

The borderman passed on down the path thinking of what he had heard against Metzar. The colonel had said that the man was prosperous for an innkeeper who took pelts, grain or meat in exchange for rum. The village gossips disliked him because he was unmarried, taciturn, and did not care for their company. Jonathan reflected also on the fact that Indians were frequently coming to the inn, and this made him distrustful of the proprietor. It was true that Colonel Zane had red-skinned visitors, but there was always good reason for their coming. Jonathan had seen, during the Revolution, more than one trusted man proven to be a traitor, and the conviction settled upon him that some quiet scouting would show up the innkeeper as aiding the horse-thieves if not actually in league with them.

“Good evening, Jonathan Zane.”

This greeting in a woman’s clear voice brought Jonathan out from his reveries. He glanced up to see Helen Sheppard standing in the doorway of her father’s cabin.

“Evenin’, miss,” he said with a bow, and would have passed on.

“Wait,” she cried, and stepped out of the door.

He waited by the gate with a manner which showed that such a summons was novel to him.

Helen, piqued at his curt greeting, had asked him to wait without any idea of what she would say. Coming slowly down the path she felt again a subtle awe of this borderman. Regretting her impulsiveness, she lost confidence.

Gaining the gate she looked up intending to speak; but was unable to do so as she saw how cold and grave was his face, and how piercing were his eyes. She flushed slightly, and then, conscious of an embarrassment new and strange to her, blushed rosy red, making, as it seemed to her, a stupid remark about the sunset. When he took her words literally, and said the sunset was fine, she felt guilty of deceitfulness. Whatever Helen’s faults, and they were many, she was honest, and because of not having looked at the sunset, but only wanting him to see her as did other men, the innocent ruse suddenly appeared mean and trifling.

Then, with a woman’s quick intuition, she understood that coquetries were lost on this borderman, and, with a smile, got the better of her embarrassment and humiliation by telling the truth.

“I wanted to ask a favor of you, and I’m a little afraid.”

She spoke with girlish shyness, which increased as he stared at her.

“Why—why do you look at me so?”

“There’s a lake over yonder which the Shawnees say is haunted by a woman they killed,” he replied quietly. “You’d do for her spirit, so white an’ beautiful in the silver moonlight.”

“So my white dress makes me look ghostly,” she answered lightly, though deeply conscious of surprise and pleasure at such an unexpected reply from him. This borderman might be full of surprises. “Such a time as I had bringing my dresses out here! I don’t know when I can wear them. This is the simplest one.”

“An’ it’s mighty new an’ bewilderin’ for the border,” he replied with a smile in his eyes.

“When these are gone I’ll get no more except linsey ones,” she said brightly, yet her eyes shone with a wistful uncertainty of the future.

“Will you be happy here?”

“I am happy. I have always wanted to be of some use in the world. I assure you, Master Zane, I am not the butterfly I seem. I have worked hard all day, that is, until your sister Betty came over. All the girls have helped me fix up the cabin until it’s more comfortable than I ever dreamed one could be on the frontier. Father is well content here, and that makes me happy. I haven’t had time for forebodings. The young men of Fort Henry have been—well, attentive; in fact, they’ve been here all the time.”

She laughed a little at this last remark, and looked demurely at him.

“It’s a frontier custom,” he said.

“Oh, indeed? Do all the young men call often and stay late?”

“They do.”

“You didn’t,” she retorted. “You’re the only one who hasn’t been to see me.”

“I do not wait on the girls,” he replied with a grave smile.

“Oh, you don’t? Do you expect them to wait on you?” she asked, feeling, now she had made this silent man talk, once more at her ease.

“I am a borderman,” replied Jonathan. There was a certain dignity or sadness in his answer which reminded Helen of Colonel Zane’s portrayal of a borderman’s life. It struck her keenly. Here was this young giant standing erect and handsome before her, as rugged as one of the ash trees of his beloved forest. Who could tell when his strong life might be ended by an Indian’s hatchet?

“For you, then, is there no such thing as friendship?” she asked.

“On the border men are serious.”

This recalled his sister’s conversation regarding the attentions of the young men, that they would follow her, fight for her, and give her absolutely no peace until one of them had carried her to his cabin a bride.

She could not carry on the usual conventional conversation with this borderman, but remained silent for a time. She realized more keenly than ever before how different he was from other men, and watched closely as he stood gazing out over the river. Perhaps something she had said caused him to think of the many pleasures and joys he missed. But she could not be certain what was in his mind. She was not accustomed to impassive faces and cold eyes with unlit fires in their dark depths. More likely he was thinking of matters nearer to his wild, free life; of his companion Wetzel somewhere out beyond those frowning hills. Then she remembered that the colonel had told her of his brother’s love for nature in all its forms; how he watched the shades of evening fall; lost himself in contemplation of the last copper glow flushing the western sky, or became absorbed in the bright stars. Possibly he had forgotten her presence. Darkness was rapidly stealing down upon them. The evening, tranquil and gray, crept over them with all its mystery. He was a part of it. She could not hope to understand him; but saw clearly that his was no common personality. She wanted to speak, to voice a sympathy strong within her; but she did not know what to say to this borderman.

“If what your sister tells me of the border is true, I may soon need a friend,” she said, after weighing well her words. She faced him modestly yet bravely, and looked him straight in the eyes. Because he did not reply she spoke again.

“I mean such a friend as you or Wetzel.”

“You may count on both,” he replied.

“Thank you,” she said softly, giving him her hand. “I shall not forget. One more thing. Will you break a borderman’s custom, for my sake?”

“How?”

“Come to see me when you are in the settlement?”

Helen said this in a low voice with just a sob in her breath; but she met his gaze fairly. Her big eyes were all aglow, alight with girlish appeal, and yet proud with a woman’s honest demand for fair exchange. Promise was there, too, could he but read it, of wonderful possibilities.

“No,” he answered gently.

Helen was not prepared for such a rebuff. She was interested in him, and not ashamed to show it. She feared only that he might misunderstand her; but to refuse her proffered friendship, that was indeed unexpected. Rude she thought it was, while from brow to curving throat her fair skin crimsoned. Then her face grew pale as the moonlight. Hard on her resentment had surged the swell of some new emotion strong and sweet. He refused her friendship because he did not dare accept it; because his life was not his own; because he was a borderman.

While they stood thus, Jonathan looking perplexed and troubled, feeling he had hurt her, but knowing not what to say, and Helen with a warm softness in her eyes, the stalwart figure of a man loomed out of the gathering darkness.

“Ah, Miss Helen! Good evening,” he said.

“Is it you, Mr. Brandt?” asked Helen. “Of course you know Mr. Zane.”

Brandt acknowledged Jonathan’s bow with an awkwardness which had certainly been absent in his greeting to Helen. He started slightly when she spoke the borderman’s name.

A brief pause ensued.

“Good night,” said Jonathan, and left them.

He had noticed Brandt’s gesture of surprise, slight though it was, and was thinking about it as he walked away. Brandt may have been astonished at finding a borderman talking to a girl, and certainly, as far as Jonathan was concerned, the incident was without precedent. But, on the other hand, Brandt may have had another reason, and Jonathan tried to study out what it might be.

He gave but little thought to Helen. That she might like him exceedingly well, did not come into his mind. He remembered his sister Betty’s gossip regarding Helen and her admirers, and particularly Roger Brandt; but felt no great concern; he had no curiosity to know more of her. He admired Helen because she was beautiful, yet the feeling was much the same he might have experienced for a graceful deer, a full-foliaged tree, or a dark mossy-stoned bend in a murmuring brook. The girl’s face and figure, perfect and alluring as they were, had not awakened him from his indifference.

On arriving at his brother’s home, he found the colonel and Betty sitting on the porch.

“Eb, who is this Brandt?” he asked.

“Roger Brandt? He’s a French-Canadian; came here from Detroit a year ago. Why do you ask?”

“I want to know more about him.”

Colonel Zane reflected a moment, first as to this unusual request from Jonathan, and secondly in regard to what little he really did know of Roger Brandt.

“Well, Jack, I can’t tell you much; nothing of him before he showed up here. He says he has been a pioneer, hunter, scout, soldier, trader—everything. When he came to the fort we needed men. It was just after Girty’s siege, and all the cabins had been burned. Brandt seemed honest, and was a good fellow. Besides, he had gold. He started the river barges, which came from Fort Pitt. He has surely done the settlement good service, and has prospered. I never talked a dozen times to him, and even then, not for long. He appears to like the young people, which is only natural. That’s all I know; Betty might tell you more, for he tried to be attentive to her.”

“Did he, Betty?” Jonathan asked.

“He followed me until I showed him I didn’t care for company,” answered Betty.

“What kind of a man is he?”

“Jack, I know nothing against him, although I never fancied him. He’s better educated than the majority of frontiersmen; he’s good-natured and agreeable, and the people like him.”

“Why don’t you?”

Betty looked surprised at his blunt question, and then said with a laugh: “I never tried to reason why; but since you have spoken I believe my dislike was instinctive.”

After Betty had retired to her room the brothers remained on the porch smoking.

“Betty’s pretty keen, Jack. I never knew her to misjudge a man. Why this sudden interest in Roger Brandt?”

The borderman puffed his pipe in silence.

“Say, Jack,” Colonel Zane said suddenly, “do you connect Brandt in any way with this horse-stealing?”

“No more than some, an’ less than others,” replied Jonathan curtly.

Nothing more was said for a time. To the brothers this hour of early dusk brought the same fullness of peace. From gray twilight to gloomy dusk quiet reigned. The insects of night chirped and chorused with low, incessant hum. From out the darkness came the peeping of frogs.

Suddenly the borderman straightened up, and, removing the pipe from his mouth, turned his ear to the faint breeze, while at the same time one hand closed on the colonel’s knee with a warning clutch.

Colonel Zane knew what that clutch signified. Some faint noise, too low for ordinary ears, had roused the borderman. The colonel listened, but heard nothing save the familiar evening sounds.

“Jack, what’d you hear?” he whispered.

“Somethin’ back of the barn,” replied Jonathan, slipping noiselessly off the steps, lying at full length with his ear close to the ground. “Where’s the dog?” he asked.

“Chief must have gone with Sam. The old nigger sometimes goes at this hour to see his daughter.”

Jonathan lay on the grass several moments; then suddenly he arose much as a bent sapling springs to place.

“I hear footsteps. Get the rifles,” he said in a fierce whisper.

“Damn! There is someone in the barn.”

“No; they’re outside. Hurry, but softly.”

Colonel Zane had but just risen to his feet, when Mrs. Zane came to the door and called him by name.

Instantly from somewhere in the darkness overhanging the road, came a low, warning whistle.

“A signal!” exclaimed Colonel Zane.

“Quick, Eb! Look toward Metzar’s light. One, two, three, shadows—Injuns!”

“By the Lord Harry! Now they’re gone; but I couldn’t mistake those round heads and bristling feathers.”

“Shawnees!” said the borderman, and his teeth shut hard like steel on flint.

“Jack, they were after the horses, and someone was on the lookout! By God! right under our noses!”

“Hurry,” cried Jonathan, pulling his brother off the porch.

Colonel Zane followed the borderman out of the yard, into the road, and across the grassy square.

“We might find the one who gave the signal,” said the colonel. “He was near at hand, and couldn’t have passed the house.”

Colonel Zane was correct, for whoever had whistled would be forced to take one of two ways of escape; either down the straight road ahead, or over the high stockade fence of the fort.

“There he goes,” whispered Jonathan.

“Where? I can’t see a blamed thing.”

“Go across the square, run around the fort, an’ head him off on the road. Don’t try to stop him for he’ll have weapons, just find out who he is.”

“I see him now,” replied Colonel Zane, as he hurried off into the darkness.

During a few moments Jonathan kept in view the shadow he had seen first come out of the gloom by the stockade, and thence pass swiftly down the road. He followed swiftly, silently. Presently a light beyond threw a glare across the road. He thought he was approaching a yard where there was a fire, and the flames proved to be from pine cones burning in the yard of Helen Sheppard. He remembered then that she was entertaining some of the young people.

The figure he was pursuing did not pass the glare. Jonathan made certain it disappeared before reaching the light, and he knew his eyesight too well not to trust to it absolutely. Advancing nearer the yard, he heard the murmur of voices in gay conversation, and soon saw figures moving about under the trees.

No doubt was in his mind but that the man who gave the signal to warn the Indians, was one of Helen Sheppard’s guests.

Jonathan had walked across the street then down the path, before he saw the colonel coming from the opposite direction. Halting under a maple he waited for his brother to approach.

“I didn’t meet any one. Did you lose him?” whispered Colonel Zane breathlessly.

“No; he’s in there.”

“That’s Sheppard’s place. Do you mean he’s hiding there?”

“No!”

Colonel Zane swore, as was his habit when exasperated. Kind and generous man that he was, it went hard with him to believe in the guilt of any of the young men he had trusted. But Jonathan had said there was a traitor among them, and Colonel Zane did not question this assertion. He knew the borderman. During years full of strife, and war, and blood had he lived beside this silent man who said little, but that little was the truth. Therefore Colonel Zane gave way to anger.

“Well, I’m not so damned surprised! What’s to be done?”

“Find out what men are there?”

“That’s easy. I’ll go to see George and soon have the truth.”

“Won’t do,” said the borderman decisively. “Go back to the barn, an’ look after the hosses.”

When Colonel Zane had obeyed Jonathan dropped to his hands and knees, and swiftly, with the agile movements of an Indian, gained a corner of the Sheppard yard. He crouched in the shade of a big plum tree. Then, at a favorable opportunity, vaulted the fence and disappeared under a clump of lilac bushes.

The evening wore away no more tediously to the borderman, than to those young frontiersmen who were whispering tender or playful words to their partners. Time and patience were the same to Jonathan Zane. He lay hidden under the fragrant lilacs, his eyes, accustomed to the dark from long practice, losing no movement of the guests. Finally it became evident that the party was at an end. One couple took the initiative, and said good night to their hostess.

“Tom Bennet, I hope it’s not you,” whispered the borderman to himself, as he recognized the young fellow.

A general movement followed, until the merry party were assembled about Helen near the front gate.

“Jim Morrison, I’ll bet it’s not you,” was Jonathan’s comment. “That soldier Williams is doubtful; Hart an’ Johnson being strangers, are unknown quantities around here, an’ then comes Brandt.”

All departed except Brandt, who remained talking to Helen in low, earnest tones. Jonathan lay very quietly, trying to decide what should be his next move in the unraveling of the mystery. He paid little attention to the young couple, but could not help overhearing their conversation.

“Indeed, Mr. Brandt, you frontiersmen are not backward,” Helen was saying in her clear voice. “I am surprised to learn that you love me upon such short acquaintance, and am sorry, too, for I hardly know whether I even so much as like you.”

“I love you. We men of the border do things rapidly,” he replied earnestly.

“So it seems,” she said with a soft laugh.

“Won’t you care for me?” he pleaded.

“Nothing is surer than that I never know what I am going to do,” Helen replied lightly.

“All these fellows are in love with you. They can’t help it any more than I. You are the most glorious creature. Please give me hope.”

“Mr. Brandt, let go my hand. I’m afraid I don’t like such impulsive men.”

“Please let me hold your hand.”

“Certainly not.”

“But I will hold it, and if you look at me like that again I’ll do more,” he said.

“What, bold sir frontiersman?” she returned, lightly still, but in a voice which rang with a deeper note.

“I’ll kiss you,” he cried desperately.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I though? You don’t know us border fellows yet. You come here with your wonderful beauty, and smile at us with that light in your eyes which makes men mad. Oh, you’ll pay for it.”

The borderman listened to all this love-making half disgusted, until he began to grow interested. Brandt’s back was turned to him, and Helen stood so that the light from the pine cones shone on her face. Her eyes were brilliant, otherwise she seemed a woman perfectly self-possessed. Brandt held her hand despite the repeated efforts she made to free it. But she did not struggle violently, or make an outcry.

Suddenly Brandt grasped her other hand, pulling her toward him.

“These other fellows will kiss you, and I’m going to be the first!” he declared passionately.

Helen drew back, now thoroughly alarmed by the man’s fierce energy. She had been warned against this very boldness in frontiersmen; but had felt secure in her own pride and dignity. Her blood boiled at the thought that she must exert strength to escape insult. She struggled violently when Brandt bent his head. Almost sick with fear, she had determined to call for help, when a violent wrench almost toppled her over. At the same instant her wrists were freed; she heard a fierce cry, a resounding blow, and then the sodden thud of a heavy body falling. Recovering her balance, she saw a tall figure beside her, and a man in the act of rising from the ground.

“You?” whispered Helen, recognizing the tall figure as Jonathan’s.

The borderman did not answer. He stepped forward, slipping his hand inside his hunting frock. Brandt sprang nimbly to his feet, and with a face which, even in the dim light, could be seen distorted with fury, bent forward to look at the stranger. He, too, had his hand within his coat, as if grasping a weapon; but he did not draw it.

“Zane, a lighter blow would have been easier to forget,” he cried, his voice clear and cutting. Then he turned to the girl. “Miss Helen, I got what I deserved. I crave your forgiveness, and ask you to understand a man who was once a gentleman. If I am one no longer, the frontier is to blame. I was mad to treat you as I did.”

Thus speaking, he bowed low with the grace of a man sometimes used to the society of ladies, and then went out of the gate.

“Where did you come from?” asked Helen, looking up at Jonathan.

He pointed under the lilac bushes.

“Were you there?” she asked wonderingly. “Did you hear all?”

“I couldn’t help hearin’.”

“It was fortunate for me; but why—why were you there?”

Helen came a step nearer, and regarded him curiously with her great eyes now black with excitement.

The borderman was silent.

Helen’s softened mood changed instantly. There was nothing in his cold face which might have betrayed in him a sentiment similar to that of her admirers.

“Did you spy on me?” she asked quickly, after a moment’s thought.

“No,” replied Jonathan calmly.

Helen gazed in perplexity at this strange man. She did not know how to explain it; she was irritated, but did her best to conceal it. He had no interest in her, yet had hidden under the lilacs in her yard. She was grateful because he had saved her from annoyance, yet could not fathom his reason for being so near.

“Did you come here to see me?” she asked, forgetting her vexation.

“No.”

“What for, then?”

“I reckon I won’t say,” was the quiet, deliberate refusal.

Helen stamped her foot in exasperation.

“Be careful that I do not put a wrong construction on your strange action,” said she coldly. “If you have reasons, you might trust me. If you are only—”

“Sh-s-sh!” he breathed, grasping her wrist, and holding it firmly in his powerful hand. The whole attitude of the man had altered swiftly, subtly. The listlessness was gone. His lithe body became rigid as he leaned forward, his head toward the ground, and turned slightly in a manner that betokened intent listening.

Helen trembled as she felt his powerful frame quiver. Whatever had thus changed him, gave her another glimpse of his complex personality. It seemed to her incredible that with one whispered exclamation this man could change from cold indifference to a fire and force so strong as to dominate her.

Statue-like she remained listening; but hearing no sound, and thrillingly conscious of the hand on her arm.

Far up on the hillside an owl hooted dismally, and an instant later, faint and far away, came an answer so low as to be almost indistinct.

The borderman raised himself erect as he released her.

“It’s only an owl,” she said in relief.

His eyes gleamed like stars.

“It’s Wetzel, an’ it means Injuns!”

Then he was gone into the darkness.

CHAPTER V

In the misty morning twilight Colonel Zane, fully armed, paced to and fro before his cabin, on guard. All night he had maintained a watch. He had not considered it necessary to send his family into the fort, to which they had often been compelled to flee. On the previous night Jonathan had come swiftly back to the cabin, and, speaking but two words, seized his weapons and vanished into the black night. The words were “Injuns! Wetzel!” and there were none others with more power to affect hearers on the border. The colonel believed that Wetzel had signaled to Jonathan.

On the west a deep gully with precipitous sides separated the settlement from a high, wooded bluff. Wetzel often returned from his journeying by this difficult route. He had no doubt seen Indian signs, and had communicated the intelligence to Jonathan by their system of night-bird calls. The nearness of the mighty hunter reassured Colonel Zane.

When the colonel returned from his chase of the previous night, he went directly to the stable, there to find that the Indians had made off with a thoroughbred, and Betty’s pony. Colonel Zane was furious, not on account of the value of the horses, but because Bess was his favorite bay, and Betty loved nothing more than her pony Madcap. To have such a march stolen on him after he had heard and seen the thieves was indeed hard. High time it was that these horse thieves be run to earth. No Indian had planned these marauding expeditions. An intelligent white man was at the bottom of the thieving, and he should pay for his treachery.

The colonel’s temper, however, soon cooled. He realized after thinking over the matter, that he was fortunate it passed off without bloodshed. Very likely the intent had been to get all his horses, perhaps his neighbor’s as well, and it had been partly frustrated by Jonathan’s keen sagacity. These Shawnees, white leader or not, would never again run such risks.

“It’s like a skulking Shawnee,” muttered Colonel Zane, “to slip down here under cover of early dusk, when no one but an Indian hunter could detect him. I didn’t look for trouble, especially so soon after the lesson we gave Girty and his damned English and redskins. It’s lucky Jonathan was here. I’ll go back to the old plan of stationing scouts at the outposts until snow flies.”

While Colonel Zane talked to himself and paced the path he had selected to patrol, the white mists cleared, and a rosy hue followed the brightening in the east. The birds ceased twittering to break into gay songs, and the cock in the barnyard gave one final clarion-voiced salute to the dawn. The rose in the east deepened into rich red, and then the sun peeped over the eastern hilltops to drench the valley with glad golden light.

A blue smoke curling lazily from the stone chimney of his cabin, showed that Sam had made the kitchen fire, and a little later a rich, savory odor gave pleasing evidence that his wife was cooking breakfast.

“Any sign of Jack?” a voice called from the open door, and Betty appeared.

“Nary sign.”

“Of the Indians, then?”

“Well, Betts, they left you a token of their regard,” and Colonel Zane smiled as he took a broken halter from the fence.

“Madcap?” cried Betty.

“Yes, they’ve taken Madcap and Bess.”

“Oh, the villains! Poor pony,” exclaimed Betty indignantly. “Eb, I’ll coax Wetzel to fetch the pony home if he has to kill every Shawnee in the valley.”

“Now you’re talking, Betts,” Colonel Zane replied. “If you could get Lew to do that much, you’d be blessed from one end of the border to the other.”

He walked up the road; then back, keeping a sharp lookout on all sides, and bestowing a particularly keen glance at the hillside across the ravine, but could see no sign of the bordermen. As it was now broad daylight he felt convinced that further watch was unnecessary, and went in to breakfast. When he came out again the villagers were astir. The sharp strokes of axes rang out on the clear morning air, and a mellow anvil-clang pealed up from the blacksmith shop. Colonel Zane found his brother Silas and Jim Douns near the gate.

“Morning, boys,” he cried cheerily.

“Any glimpse of Jack or Lew?” asked Silas.

“No; but I’m expecting one of ’em any moment.”

“How about the Indians?” asked Douns. “Silas roused me out last night; but didn’t stay long enough to say more than ‘Indians.’”

“I don’t know much more than Silas. I saw several of the red devils who stole the horses; but how many, where they’ve gone, or what we’re to expect, I can’t say. We’ve got to wait for Jack or Lew. Silas, keep the garrison in readiness at the fort, and don’t allow a man, soldier or farmer, to leave the clearing until further orders. Perhaps there were only three of those Shawnees, and then again the woods might have been full of them. I take it something’s amiss, or Jack and Lew would be in by now.”

“Here come Sheppard and his girl,” said Silas, pointing down the lane. “’Pears George is some excited.”

Colonel Zane had much the same idea as he saw Sheppard and his daughter. The old man appeared in a hurry, which was sufficient reason to believe him anxious or alarmed, and Helen looked pale.

“Ebenezer, what’s this I hear about Indians?” Sheppard asked excitedly. “What with Helen’s story about the fort being besieged, and this brother of yours routing honest people from their beds, I haven’t had a wink of sleep. What’s up? Where are the redskins?”

“Now, George, be easy,” said Colonel Zane calmly. “And you, Helen, mustn’t be frightened. There’s no danger. We did have a visit from Indians last night; but they hurt no one, and got only two horses.”

“Oh, I’m so relieved that it’s not worse,” said Helen.

“It’s bad enough, Helen,” Betty cried, her black eyes flashing, “my pony Madcap is gone.”

“Colonel Zane, come here quick!” cried Douns, who stood near the gate.

With one leap Colonel Zane was at the gate, and, following with his eyes the direction indicated by Douns’ trembling finger, he saw two tall, brown figures striding down the lane. One carried two rifles, and the other a long bundle wrapped in a blanket.

“It’s Jack and Wetzel,” whispered Colonel Zane to Jim. “They’ve got the girl, and by God! from the way that bundle hangs, I think she’s dead. Here,” he added, speaking loudly, “you women get into the house.”

Mrs. Zane, Betty and Helen stared.

“Go into the house!” he cried authoritatively.

Without a protest the three women obeyed.

At that moment Nellie Douns came across the lane; Sam shuffled out from the backyard, and Sheppard arose from his seat on the steps. They joined Colonel Zane, Silas and Jim at the gate.

“I wondered what kept you so late,” Colonel Zane said to Jonathan, as he and his companion came up. “You’ve fetched Mabel, and she’s—”. The good man could say no more. If he should live an hundred years on the border amid savage murderers, he would still be tender-hearted. Just now he believed the giant borderman by the side of Jonathan held a dead girl, one whom he had danced, when a child, upon his knee.

“Mabel, an’ jest alive,” replied Jonathan.

“By God! I’m glad!” exclaimed Colonel Zane. “Here, Lew, give her to me.”

Wetzel relinquished his burden to the colonel.

“Lew, any bad Indian sign?” asked Colonel Zane as he turned to go into the house.

The borderman shook his head.

“Wait for me,” added the colonel.

He carried the girl to that apartment in the cabin which served the purpose of a sitting-room, and laid her on a couch. He gently removed the folds of the blanket, disclosing to view a fragile, white-faced girl.

“Bess, hurry, hurry!” he screamed to his wife, and as she came running in, followed no less hurriedly by Betty, Helen and Nellie, he continued, “Here’s Mabel Lane, alive, poor child; but in sore need of help. First see whether she has any bodily injury. If a bullet must be cut out, or a knife-wound sewed up, it’s better she remained unconscious. Betty, run for Bess’s instruments, and bring brandy and water. Lively now!” Then he gave vent to an oath and left the room.

Helen, her heart throbbing wildly, went to the side of Mrs. Zane, who was kneeling by the couch. She saw a delicate girl, not over eighteen years old, with a face that would have been beautiful but for the set lips, the closed eyelids, and an expression of intense pain.

“Oh! Oh!” breathed Helen.

“Nell, hand me the scissors,” said Mrs. Zane, “and help me take off this dress. Why, it’s wet, but, thank goodness! ’tis not with blood. I know that slippery touch too well. There, that’s right. Betty, give me a spoonful of brandy. Now heat a blanket, and get one of your linsey gowns for this poor child.”

Helen watched Mrs. Zane as if fascinated. The colonel’s wife continued to talk while with deft fingers she forced a few drops of brandy between the girl’s closed teeth. Then with the adroitness of a skilled surgeon, she made the examination. Helen had heard of this pioneer woman’s skill in setting broken bones and treating injuries, and when she looked from the calm face to the steady fingers, she had no doubt as to the truth of what had been told.

“Neither bullet wound, cut, bruise, nor broken bone,” said Mrs. Zane. “It’s fear, starvation, and the terrible shock.”

She rubbed Mabel’s hands while gazing at her pale face. Then she forced more brandy between the tightly-closed lips. She was rewarded by ever so faint a color tinging the wan cheeks, to be followed by a fluttering of the eyelids. Then the eyes opened wide. They were large, soft, dark and humid with agony.

Helen could not bear their gaze. She saw the shadow of death, and of worse than death. She looked away, while in her heart rose a storm of passionate fury at the brutes who had made of this tender girl a wreck.

The room was full of women now, sober-faced matrons and grave-eyed girls, yet all wore the same expression, not alone of anger, nor fear, nor pity, but of all combined.

Helen instinctively felt that this was one of the trials of border endurance, and she knew from the sterner faces of the maturer women that such a trial was familiar. Despite all she had been told, the shock and pain were too great, and she went out of the room sobbing.

She almost fell over the broad back of Jonathan Zane who was sitting on the steps. Near him stood Colonel Zane talking with a tall man clad in faded buckskin.

“Lass, you shouldn’t have stayed,” said Colonel Zane kindly.

“It’s—hurt—me—here,” said Helen, placing her hand over her heart.

“Yes, I know, I know; of course it has,” he replied, taking her hand. “But be brave, Helen, bear up, bear up. Oh! this border is a stern place! Do not think of that poor girl. Come, let me introduce Jonathan’s friend, Wetzel!”

Helen looked up and held out her hand. She saw a very tall man with extremely broad shoulders, a mass of raven-black hair, and a white face. He stepped forward, and took her hand in his huge, horny palm, pressing it, he stepped back without speaking. Colonel Zane talked to her in a soothing voice; but she failed to hear what he said. This Wetzel, this Indian-hunter whom she had heard called “Deathwind of the Border,” this companion, guide, teacher of Jonathan Zane, this borderman of wonderful deeds, stood before her.

Helen saw a cold face, deathly in its pallor, lighted by eyes sloe-black but like glinting steel. Striking as were these features, they failed to fascinate as did the strange tracings which apparently showed through the white, drawn skin. This first repelled, then drew her with wonderful force. Suffering, of fire, and frost, and iron was written there, and, stronger than all, so potent as to cause fear, could be read the terrible purpose of this man’s tragic life.

“You avenged her! Oh! I know you did!” cried Helen, her whole heart leaping with a blaze to her eyes.

She was answered by a smile, but such a smile! Kindly it broke over the stern face, giving a glimpse of a heart still warm beneath that steely cold. Behind it, too, there was something fateful, something deadly.

Helen knew, though the borderman spoke not, that somewhere among the grasses of the broad plains, or on the moss of the wooded hills, lay dead the perpetrators of this outrage, their still faces bearing the ghastly stamp of Deathwind.

CHAPTER VI

Happier days than she had hoped for, dawned upon Helen after the first touch of border sorrow. Mabel Lane did not die. Helen and Betty nursed the stricken girl tenderly, weeping for very joy when signs of improvement appeared. She had remained silent for several days, always with that haunting fear in her eyes, and then gradually came a change. Tender care and nursing had due effect in banishing the dark shadow. One morning after a long sleep she awakened with a bright smile, and from that time her improvement was rapid.

Helen wanted Mabel to live with her. The girl’s position was pitiable. Homeless, fatherless, with not a relative on the border, yet so brave, so patient that she aroused all the sympathy in Helen’s breast. Village gossip was in substance, that Mabel had given her love to a young frontiersman, by name Alex Bennet, who had an affection for her, so it was said, but as yet had made no choice between her and the other lasses of the settlement. What effect Mabel’s terrible experience might have on this lukewarm lover, Helen could not even guess; but she was not hopeful as to the future. Colonel Zane and Betty approved of Helen’s plan to persuade Mabel to live with her, and the latter’s faint protestations they silenced by claiming she could be of great assistance in the management of the house, therefore it was settled.

Finally the day came when Mabel was ready to go with Helen. Betty had given her a generous supply of clothing, for all her belongings had been destroyed when the cabin was burned. With Helen’s strong young arm around her she voiced her gratitude to Betty and Mrs. Zane and started toward the Sheppard home.

From the green square, where the ground was highest, an unobstructed view could be had of the valley. Mabel gazed down the river to where her home formerly stood. Only a faint, dark spot, like a blur on the green landscape, could be seen. Her soft eyes filled with tears; but she spoke no word.

“She’s game and that’s why she didn’t go under,” Colonel Zane said to himself as he mused on the strength and spirit of borderwomen. To their heroism, more than any other thing, he attributed the establishing of homes in this wilderness.

In the days that ensued, as Mabel grew stronger, the girls became very fond of each other. Helen would have been happy at any time with such a sweet companion, but just then, when the poor girl’s mind was so sorely disturbed she was doubly glad. For several days, after Mabel was out of danger, Helen’s thoughts had dwelt on a subject which caused extreme vexation. She had begun to suspect that she encouraged too many admirers for whom she did not care, and thought too much of a man who did not reciprocate. She was gay and moody in turn. During the moody hours she suspected herself, and in her gay ones, scorned the idea that she might ever care for a man who was indifferent. But that thought once admitted, had a trick of returning at odd moments, clouding her cheerful moods.

One sunshiny morning while the May flowers smiled under the hedge, when dew sparkled on the leaves, and the locust-blossoms shone creamy-white amid the soft green of the trees, the girls set about their much-planned flower gardening. Helen was passionately fond of plants, and had brought a jar of seeds of her favorites all the way from her eastern home.

“We’ll plant the morning-glories so they’ll run up the porch, and the dahlias in this long row and the nasturtiums in this round bed,” Helen said.

“You have some trailing arbutus,” added Mabel, “and must have clematis, wild honeysuckle and golden-glow, for they are all sweet flowers.”

“This arbutus is so fresh, so dewy, so fragrant,” said Helen, bending aside a lilac bush to see the pale, creeping flowers. “I never saw anything so beautiful. I grow more and more in love with my new home and friends. I have such a pretty garden to look into, and I never tire of the view beyond.”

Helen gazed with pleasure and pride at the garden with its fresh green and lavender-crested lilacs, at the white-blossomed trees, and the vine-covered log cabins with blue smoke curling from their stone chimneys. Beyond, the great bulk of the fort stood guard above the willow-skirted river, and far away over the winding stream the dark hills, defiant, kept their secrets.

“If it weren’t for that threatening fort one could imagine this little hamlet, nestling under the great bluff, as quiet and secure as it is beautiful,” said Helen. “But that charred stockade fence with its scarred bastions and these lowering port-holes, always keep me alive to the reality.”

“It wasn’t very quiet when Girty was here,” Mabel replied thoughtfully.

“Were you in the fort then?” asked Helen breathlessly.

“Oh, yes, I cooled the rifles for the men,” replied Mabel calmly.

“Tell me all about it.”

Helen listened again to a story she had heard many times; but told by new lips it always gained in vivid interest. She never tired of hearing how the notorious renegade, Girty, rode around the fort on his white horse, giving the defenders an hour in which to surrender; she learned again of the attack, when the British soldiers remained silent on an adjoining hillside, while the Indians yelled exultantly and ran about in fiendish glee, when Wetzel began the battle by shooting an Indian chieftain who had ventured within range of his ever fatal rifle. And when it came to the heroic deeds of that memorable siege Helen could not contain her enthusiasm. She shed tears over little Harry Bennet’s death at the south bastion where, though riddled with bullets, he stuck to his post until relieved. Clark’s race, across the roof of the fort to extinguish a burning arrow, she applauded with clapping hands. Her great eyes glowed and burned, but she was silent, when hearing how Wetzel ran alone to a break in the stockade, and there, with an ax, the terrible borderman held at bay the whole infuriated Indian mob until the breach was closed. Lastly Betty Zane’s never-to-be-forgotten run with the powder to the relief of the garrison and the saving of the fort was something not to cry over or applaud; but to dream of and to glorify.

“Down that slope from Colonel Zane’s cabin is where Betty ran with the powder,” said Mabel, pointing.

“Did you see her?” asked Helen.

“Yes, I looked out of a port-hole. The Indians stopped firing at the fort in their eagerness to shoot Betty. Oh, the banging of guns and yelling of savages was one fearful, dreadful roar! Through all that hail of bullets Betty ran swift as the wind.”

“I almost wish Girty would come again,” said Helen.

“Don’t; he might.”

“How long has Betty’s husband, Mr. Clarke, been dead?” inquired Helen.

“I don’t remember exactly. He didn’t live long after the siege. Some say he inhaled the flames while fighting fire inside the stockade.”

“How sad!”

“Yes, it was. It nearly killed Betty. But we border girls do not give up easily; we must not,” replied Mabel, an unquenchable spirit showing through the sadness of her eyes.

Merry voices interrupted them, and they turned to see Betty and Nell entering the gate. With Nell’s bright chatter and Betty’s wit, the conversation became indeed vivacious, running from gossip to gowns, and then to that old and ever new theme, love. Shortly afterward the colonel entered the gate, with swinging step and genial smile.

“Well, now, if here aren’t four handsome lasses,” he said with an admiring glance.

“Eb, I believe if you were single any girl might well suspect you of being a flirt,” said Betty.

“No girl ever did. I tell you I was a lady-killer in my day,” replied Colonel Zane, straightening his fine form. He was indeed handsome, with his stalwart frame, dark, bronzed face and rugged, manly bearing.

“Bess said you were; but that it didn’t last long after you saw her,” cried Betty, mischief gleaming in her dark eye.

“Well, that’s so,” replied the colonel, looking a trifle crest-fallen; “but you know every dog has his day.” Then advancing to the porch, he looked at Mabel with a more serious gaze as he asked, “How are you today?”

“Thank you, Colonel Zane, I am getting quite strong.”

“Look up the valley. There’s a raft coming down the river,” said he softly.

Far up the broad Ohio a square patch showed dark against the green water.

Colonel Zane saw Mabel start, and a dark red flush came over her pale face. For an instant she gazed with an expression of appeal, almost fear. He knew the reason. Alex Bennet was on that raft.

“I came over to ask if I can be of any service?”

“Tell him,” she answered simply.

“I say, Betts,” Colonel Zane cried, “has Helen’s cousin cast any more such sheep eyes at you?”

“Oh, Eb, what nonsense!” exclaimed Betty, blushing furiously.

“Well, if he didn’t look sweet at you I’m an old fool.”

“You’re one anyway, and you’re horrid,” said Betty, tears of anger glistening in her eyes.

Colonel Zane whistled softly as he walked down the lane. He went into the wheelwright’s shop to see about some repairs he was having made on a wagon, and then strolled on down to the river. Two Indians were sitting on the rude log wharf, together with several frontiersmen and rivermen, all waiting for the raft. He conversed with the Indians, who were friendly Chippewas, until the raft was tied up. The first person to leap on shore was a sturdy young fellow with a shock of yellow hair, and a warm, ruddy skin.

“Hello, Alex, did you have a good trip?” asked Colonel Zane of the youth.

“H’are ye, Colonel Zane. Yes, first-rate trip,” replied young Bennet. “Say, I’ve a word for you. Come aside,” and drawing Colonel Zane out of earshot of the others, he continued, “I heard this by accident, not that I didn’t spy a bit when I got interested, for I did; but the way it came about was all chance. Briefly, there’s a man, evidently an Englishman, at Fort Pitt whom I overheard say he was out on the border after a Sheppard girl. I happened to hear from one of Brandt’s men, who rode into Pitt just before we left, that you had new friends here by that name. This fellow was a handsome chap, no common sort, but lordly, dissipated and reckless as the devil. He had a servant traveling with him, a sailor, by his gab, who was about the toughest customer I’ve met in many a day. He cut a fellow in bad shape at Pitt. These two will be on the next boat, due here in a day or so, according to river and weather conditions, an’ I thought, considerin’ how unusual the thing was, I’d better tell ye.”

“Well, well,” said Colonel Zane reflectively. He recalled Sheppard’s talk about an Englishman. “Alex, you did well to tell me. Was the man drunk when he said he came west after a woman?”

“Sure he was,” replied Alex. “But not when he spoke the name. Ye see I got suspicious, an’ asked about him. It’s this way: Jake Wentz, the trader, told me the fellow asked for the Sheppards when he got off the wagon-train. When I first seen him he was drunk, and I heard Jeff Lynn say as how the border was a bad place to come after a woman. That’s what made me prick up my ears. Then the Englishman said: ‘It is, eh? By God! I’d go to hell after a woman I wanted.’ An’ Colonel, he looked it, too.”

Colonel Zane remained thoughtful while Alex made up a bundle and forced the haft of an ax under the string; but as the young man started away the colonel suddenly remembered his errand down to the wharf.

“Alex, come back here,” he said, and wondered if the lad had good stuff in him. The boatman’s face was plain, but not evil, and a close scrutiny of it rather prepossessed the colonel.

“Alex, I’ve some bad news for you,” and then bluntly, with his keen gaze fastened on the young man’s face, he told of old Lane’s murder, of Mabel’s abduction, and of her rescue by Wetzel.

Alex began to curse and swear vengeance.

“Stow all that,” said the colonel sharply. “Wetzel followed four Indians who had Mabel and some stolen horses. The redskins quarreled over the girl, and two took the horses, leaving Mabel to the others. Wetzel went after these last, tomahawked them, and brought Mabel home. She was in a bad way, but is now getting over the shock.”

“Say, what’d we do here without Wetzel?” Alex said huskily, unmindful of the tears that streamed from his eyes and ran over his brown cheeks. “Poor old Jake! Poor Mabel! Damn me! it’s my fault. If I’d ’a done right an’ married her as I should, as I wanted to, she wouldn’t have had to suffer. But I’ll marry her yet, if she’ll have me. It was only because I had no farm, no stock, an’ only that little cabin as is full now, that I waited.”

“Alex, you know me,” said Colonel Zane in kindly tones. “Look there, down the clearing half a mile. See that green strip of land along the river, with the big chestnut in the middle and a cabin beyond. There’s as fine farming land as can be found on the border, eighty acres, well watered. The day you marry Mabel that farm is yours.”

Alex grew red, stammered, and vainly tried to express his gratitude.

“Come along, the sooner you tell Mabel the better,” said the colonel with glowing face. He was a good matchmaker. He derived more pleasure from a little charity bestowed upon a deserving person, than from a season’s crops.

When they arrived at the Sheppard house the girls were still on the porch. Mabel rose when she saw Alex, standing white and still. He, poor fellow, was embarrassed by the others, who regarded him with steady eyes.

Colonel Zane pushed Alex up on the porch, and said in a low voice: “Mabel, I’ve just arranged something you’re to give Alex. It’s a nice little farm, and it’ll be a wedding present.”

Mabel looked in a bewildered manner from Colonel Zane’s happy face to the girls, and then at the red, joyous features of her lover. Only then did she understand, and uttering a strange little cry, put her trembling hands to her bosom as she swayed to and fro.

But she did not fall, for Alex, quick at the last, leaped forward and caught her in his arms.

* * * *

That evening Helen denied herself to Mr. Brandt and several other callers. She sat on the porch with her father while he smoked his pipe.

“Where’s Will?” she asked.

“Gone after snipe, so he said,” replied her father.

“Snipe? How funny! Imagine Will hunting! He’s surely catching the wild fever Colonel Zane told us about.”

“He surely is.”

Then came a time of silence. Mr. Sheppard, accustomed to Helen’s gladsome spirit and propensity to gay chatter, noted how quiet she was, and wondered.

“Why are you so still?”

“I’m a little homesick,” Helen replied reluctantly.

“No? Well, I declare! This is a glorious country; but not for such as you, dear, who love music and gaiety. I often fear you’ll not be happy here, and then I long for the old home, which reminds me of your mother.”

“Dearest, forget what I said,” cried Helen earnestly. “I’m only a little blue today; perhaps not at all homesick.”

“Indeed, you always seemed happy.”

“Father, I am happy. It’s only—only a girl’s foolish sentiment.”

“I’ve got something to tell you, Helen, and it has bothered me since Colonel Zane spoke of it tonight. Mordaunt is coming to Fort Henry.”

“Mordaunt? Oh, impossible! Who said so? How did you learn?”

“I fear ’tis true, my dear. Colonel Zane told me he had heard of an Englishman at Fort Pitt who asked after us. Moreover, the fellow answers the description of Mordaunt. I am afraid it is he, and come after you.”

“Suppose he has—who cares? We owe him nothing. He cannot hurt us.”

“But, Helen, he’s a desperate man. Aren’t you afraid of him?”

“Not I,” cried Helen, laughing in scorn. “He’d better have a care. He can’t run things with a high hand out here on the border. I told him I would have none of him, and that ended it.”

“I’m much relieved. I didn’t want to tell you; but it seemed necessary. Well, child, good night, I’ll go to bed.”

Long after Mr. Sheppard had retired Helen sat thinking. Memories of the past, and of the unwelcome suitor, Mordaunt, thronged upon her thick and fast. She could see him now with his pale, handsome face, and distinguished bearing. She had liked him, as she had other men, until he involved her father, with himself, in financial ruin, and had made his attention to her unpleasantly persistent. Then he had followed the fall of fortune with wild dissipation, and became a gambler and a drunkard. But he did not desist in his mad wooing. He became like her shadow, and life grew to be unendurable, until her father planned to emigrate west, when she hailed the news with joy. And now Mordaunt had tracked her to her new home. She was sick with disgust. Then her spirit, always strong, and now freer for this new, wild life of the frontier, rose within her, and she dismissed all thoughts of this man and his passion.

The old life was dead and buried. She was going to be happy here. As for the present, it was enough to think of the little border village, now her home; of her girl friends; of the quiet borderman: and, for the moment, that the twilight was somber and beautiful.

High up on the wooded bluff rising so gloomily over the village, she saw among the trees something silver-bright. She watched it rise slowly from behind the trees, now hidden, now white through rifts in the foliage, until it soared lovely and grand above the black horizon. The ebony shadows of night seemed to lift, as might a sable mantle moved by invisible hands. But dark shadows, safe from the moon-rays, lay under the trees, and a pale, misty vapor hung below the brow of the bluff.

Mysterious as had grown the night before darkness yielded to the moon, this pale, white light flooding the still valley, was even more soft and strange. To one of Helen’s temperament no thought was needed; to see was enough. Yet her mind was active. She felt with haunting power the beauty of all before her; in fancy transporting herself far to those silver-tipped clouds, and peopling the dells and shady nooks under the hills with spirits and fairies, maidens and valiant knights. To her the day was as a far-off dream. The great watch stars grew wan before the radiant moon; it reigned alone. The immensity of the world with its glimmering rivers, pensive valleys and deep, gloomy forests lay revealed under the glory of the clear light.

Absorbed in this contemplation Helen remained a long time gazing with dreamy ecstasy at the moonlit valley until a slight chill disturbed her happy thoughts. She knew she was not alone. Trembling, she stood up to see, easily recognizable in the moonlight, the tall buckskin-garbed figure of Jonathan Zane.

“Well, sir,” she called, sharply, yet with a tremor in her voice.

The borderman came forward and stood in front of her. Somehow he appeared changed. The long, black rifle, the dull, glinting weapons made her shudder. Wilder and more untamable he looked than ever. The very silence of the forest clung to him; the fragrance of the grassy plains came faintly from his buckskin garments.

“Evenin’, lass,” he said in his slow, cool manner.

“How did you get here?” asked Helen presently, because he made no effort to explain his presence at such a late hour.

“I was able to walk.”

Helen observed, with a vaulting spirit, one ever ready to rise in arms, that Master Zane was disposed to add humor to his penetrating mysteriousness. She flushed hot and then paled. This borderman certainly possessed the power to vex her, and, reluctantly she admitted, to chill her soul and rouse her fear. She strove to keep back sharp words, because she had learned that this singular individual always gave good reason for his odd actions.

“I think in kindness to me,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “you might tell me why you appear so suddenly, as if you had sprung out of the ground.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. Father is in bed; so is Mabel, and Will has not yet come home. Why?”

“Has no one else been here?”

“Mr. Brandt came, as did some others; but wishing to be alone, I did not see them,” replied Helen in perplexity.

“Have you seen Brandt since?”

“Since when?”

“The night I watched by the lilac bush.”

“Yes, several times,” replied Helen. Something in his tone made her ashamed. “I couldn’t very well escape when he called. Are you surprised because after he insulted me I’d see him?”

“Yes.”

Helen felt more ashamed.

“You don’t love him?” he continued.

Helen was so surprised she could only look into the dark face above her. Then she dropped her gaze, abashed by his searching eyes. But, thinking of his question, she subdued the vague stirrings of pleasure in her breast, and answered coldly:

“No, I do not; but for the service you rendered me I should never have answered such a question.”

“I’m glad, an’ hope you care as little for the other five men who were here that night.”

“I declare, Master Zane, you seem exceedingly interested in the affairs of a young woman whom you won’t visit, except as you have come tonight.”

He looked at her with his piercing eyes.

“You spied upon my guests,” she said, in no wise abashed now that her temper was high. “Did you care so very much?”

“Care?” he asked slowly.

“Yes; you were interested to know how many of my admirers were here, what they did, and what they said. You even hint disparagingly of them.”

“True, I wanted to know,” he replied; “but I don’t hint about any man.”

“You are so interested you wouldn’t call on me when I invited you,” said Helen, with poorly veiled sarcasm. It was this that made her bitter; she could never forget that she had asked this man to come to see her, and he had refused.

“I reckon you’ve mistook me,” he said calmly.

“Why did you come? Why do you shadow my friends? This is twice you have done it. Goodness knows how many times you’ve been here! Tell me.”

The borderman remained silent.

“Answer me,” commanded Helen, her eyes blazing. She actually stamped her foot. “Borderman or not, you have no right to pry into my affairs. If you are a gentleman, tell me why you came here?”

The eyes Jonathan turned on Helen stilled all the angry throbbing of her blood.

“I come here to learn which of your lovers is the dastard who plotted the abduction of Mabel Lane, an’ the thief who stole our hosses. When I find the villain I reckon Wetzel an’ I’ll swing him to some tree.”

The borderman’s voice rang sharp and cold, and when he ceased speaking she sank back upon the step, shocked, speechless, to gaze up at him with staring eyes.

“Don’t look so, lass; don’t be frightened,” he said, his voice gentle and kind as it had been hard. He took her hand in his. “You nettled me into replyin’. You have a sharp tongue, lass, and when I spoke I was thinkin’ of him. I’m sorry.”

“A horse-thief and worse than murderer among my friends!” murmured Helen, shuddering, yet she never thought to doubt his word.

“I followed him here the night of your company.”

“Do you know which one?”

“No.”

He still held her hand, unconsciously, but Helen knew it well. A sense of his strength came with the warm pressure, and comforted her. She would need that powerful hand, surely, in the evil days which seemed to darken the horizon.

“What shall I do?” she whispered, shuddering again.

“Keep this secret between you an’ me.”

“How can I? How can I?”

“You must,” his voice was deep and low. “If you tell your father, or any one, I might lose the chance to find this man, for, lass, he’s desperate cunnin’. Then he’d go free to rob others, an’ mebbe help make off with other poor girls. Lass, keep my secret.”

“But he might try to carry me away,” said Helen in fearful perplexity.

“Most likely he might,” replied the borderman with the smile that came so rarely.

“Oh! Knowing all this, how can I meet any of these men again? I’d betray myself.”

“No; you’ve got too much pluck. It so happens you are the one to help me an’ Wetzel rid the border of these hell-hounds, an’ you won’t fail. I know a woman when it comes to that.”

“I—I help you and Wetzel?”

“Exactly.”

“Gracious!” cried Helen, half-laughing, half-crying. “And poor me with more trouble coming on the next boat.”

“Lass, the colonel told me about the Englishman. It’ll be bad for him to annoy you.”

Helen thrilled with the depth of meaning in the low voice. Fate surely was weaving a bond between her and this borderman. She felt it in his steady, piercing gaze; in her own tingling blood.

Then as her natural courage dispelled all girlish fears, she faced him, white, resolute, with a look in her eyes that matched his own.

“I will do what I can,” she said.

CHAPTER VII

Westward from Fort Henry, far above the eddying river, Jonathan Zane slowly climbed a narrow, hazel-bordered, mountain trail. From time to time he stopped in an open patch among the thickets and breathed deep of the fresh, wood-scented air, while his keen gaze swept over the glades near by, along the wooded hillsides, and above at the timber-strewn woodland.

This June morning in the wild forest was significant of nature’s brightness and joy. Broad-leaved poplars, dense foliaged oaks, and vine-covered maples shaded cool, mossy banks, while between the trees the sunshine streamed in bright spots. It shone silver on the glancing silver-leaf, and gold on the colored leaves of the butternut tree. Dewdrops glistened on the ferns; ripples sparkled in the brooks; spider-webs glowed with wondrous rainbow hues, and the flower of the forest, the sweet, pale-faced daisy, rose above the green like a white star.

Yellow birds flitted among the hazel bushes caroling joyously, and cat-birds sang gaily. Robins called; bluejays screeched in the tall, white oaks; wood-peckers hammered in the dead hard-woods, and crows cawed overhead. Squirrels chattered everywhere. Ruffed grouse rose with great bustle and a whirr, flitting like brown flakes through the leaves. From far above came the shrill cry of a hawk, followed by the wilder scream of an eagle.

Wilderness music such as all this fell harmoniously on the borderman’s ear. It betokened the gladsome spirit of his wild friends, happy in the warm sunshine above, or in the cool depths beneath the fluttering leaves, and everywhere in those lonely haunts unalarmed and free.

Familiar to Jonathan, almost as the footpath near his home, was this winding trail. On the height above was a safe rendezvous, much frequented by him and Wetzel. Every lichen-covered stone, mossy bank, noisy brook and giant oak on the way up this mountain-side, could have told, had they spoken their secrets, stories of the bordermen. The fragile ferns and slender-bladed grasses peeping from the gray and amber mosses, and the flowers that hung from craggy ledges, had wisdom to impart. A borderman lived under the green tree-tops, and, therefore, all the nodding branches of sassafras and laurel, the grassy slopes and rocky cliffs, the stately ash trees, kingly oaks and dark, mystic pines, together with the creatures that dwelt among them, save his deadly red-skinned foes, he loved. Other affection as close and true as this, he had not known. Hearkening thus with single heart to nature’s teachings, he learned her secrets. Certain it was, therefore, that the many hours he passed in the woods apart from savage pursuits, were happy and fruitful.

Slowly he pressed on up the ascent, at length coming into open light upon a small plateau marked by huge, rugged, weather-chipped stones. On the eastern side was a rocky promontory, and close to the edge of this cliff, an hundred feet in sheer descent, rose a gnarled, time and tempest-twisted chestnut tree. Here the borderman laid down his rifle and knapsack, and, half-reclining against the tree, settled himself to rest and wait.

This craggy point was the lonely watch-tower of eagles. Here on the highest headland for miles around where the bordermen were wont to meet, the outlook was far-reaching and grand.

Below the gray, splintered cliffs sheered down to meet the waving tree-tops, and then hill after hill, slope after slope, waved and rolled far, far down to the green river. Open grassy patches, bright little islands in that ocean of dark green, shone on the hillsides. The rounded ridges ran straight, curved, or zigzag, but shaped their graceful lines in the descent to make the valley. Long, purple-hued, shadowy depressions in the wide expanse of foliage marked deep clefts between ridges where dark, cool streams bounded on to meet the river. Lower, where the land was level, in open spaces could be seen a broad trail, yellow in the sunlight, winding along with the curves of the water-course. On a swampy meadow, blue in the distance, a herd of buffalo browsed. Beyond the river, high over the green island, Fort Henry lay peaceful and solitary, the only token of the works of man in all that vast panorama.

Jonathan Zane was as much alone as if one thousand miles, instead of five, intervened between him and the settlement. Loneliness was to him a passion. Other men loved home, the light of woman’s eyes, the rattle of dice or the lust of hoarding; but to him this wild, remote promontory, with its limitless view, stretching away to the dim hazy horizon, was more than all the aching joys of civilization.

Hours here, or in the shady valley, recompensed him for the loss of home comforts, the soft touch of woman’s hands, the kiss of baby lips, and also for all he suffered in his pitiless pursuits, the hard fare, the steel and blood of a borderman’s life.

Soon the sun shone straight overhead, dwarfing the shadow of the chestnut on the rock.

During such a time it was rare that any connected thought came into the borderman’s mind. His dark eyes, now strangely luminous, strayed lingeringly over those purple, undulating slopes. This intense watchfulness had no object, neither had his listening. He watched nothing; he hearkened to the silence. Undoubtedly in this state of rapt absorption his perceptions were acutely alert; but without thought, as were those of the savage in the valley below, or the eagle in the sky above.

Yet so perfectly trained were these perceptions that the least unnatural sound or sight brought him wary and watchful from his dreamy trance.

The slight snapping of a twig in the thicket caused him to sit erect, and reach out toward his rifle. His eyes moved among the dark openings in the thicket. In another moment a tall figure pressed the bushes apart. Jonathan let fall his rifle, and sank back against the tree once more. Wetzel stepped over the rocks toward him.

“Come from Blue Pond?” asked Jonathan as the newcomer took a seat beside him.

Wetzel nodded as he carefully laid aside his long, black rifle.

“Any Injun sign?” continued Jonathan, pushing toward his companion the knapsack of eatables he had brought from the settlement.

“Nary Shawnee track west of this divide,” answered Wetzel, helping himself to bread and cheese.

“Lew, we must go eastward, over Bing Legget’s way, to find the trail of the stolen horses.”

“Likely, an’ it’ll be a long, hard tramp.”

“Who’s in Legget’s gang now beside Old Horse, the Chippewa, an’ his Shawnee pard, Wildfire? I don’t know Bing; but I’ve seen some of his Injuns an’ they remember me.”

“Never seen Legget but onct,” replied Wetzel, “an’ that time I shot half his face off. I’ve been told by them as have seen him since, that he’s got a nasty scar on his temple an’ cheek. He’s a big man an’ knows the woods. I don’t know who all’s in his gang, nor does anybody. He works in the dark, an’ for cunnin’ he’s got some on Jim Girty, Deerin’, an’ several more renegades we know of lyin’ quiet back here in the woods. We never tackled as bad a gang as his’n; they’re all experienced woodsmen, old fighters, an’ desperate, outlawed as they be by Injuns an’ whites. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that it’s him an’ his gang who are runnin’ this hoss-thievin’; but bad or no, we’re goin’ after ’em.”

Jonathan told of his movements since he had last seen his companion.

“An’ the lass Helen is goin’ to help us,” said Wetzel, much interested. “It’s a good move. Women are keen. Betty put Miller’s schemin’ in my eye long ’afore I noticed it. But girls have chances we men’d never get.”

“Yes, an’ she’s like Betts, quicker’n lightnin’. She’ll find out this hoss-thief in Fort Henry; but Lew, when we do get him we won’t be much better off. Where do them hosses go? Who’s disposin’ of ’em for this fellar?”

“Where’s Brandt from?” asked Wetzel.

“Detroit; he’s a French-Canadian.”

Wetzel swung sharply around, his eyes glowing like wakening furnaces.

“Bing Legget’s a French-Canadian, an’ from Detroit. Metzar was once thick with him down Fort Pitt way ’afore he murdered a man an’ became an outlaw. We’re on the trail, Jack.”

“Brandt an’ Metzar, with Legget backin’ them, an’ the horses go overland to Detroit?”

“I calkilate you’ve hit the mark.”

“What’ll we do?” asked Jonathan.

“Wait; that’s best. We’ve no call to hurry. We must know the truth before makin’ a move, an’ as yet we’re only suspicious. This lass’ll find out more in a week than we could in a year. But Jack, have a care she don’t fall into any snare. Brandt ain’t any too honest a lookin’ chap, an’ them renegades is hell for women. The scars you wear prove that well enough. She’s a rare, sweet, bloomin’ lass, too. I never seen her equal. I remember how her eyes flashed when she said she knew I’d avenged Mabel. Jack, they’re wonderful eyes; an’ that girl, however sweet an’ good as she must be, is chain-lightnin’ wrapped up in a beautiful form. Aren’t the boys at the fort runnin’ arter her?”

“Like mad; it’d make you laugh to see ’em,” replied Jonathan calmly.

“There’ll be some fights before she’s settled for, an’ mebbe arter thet. Have a care for her, Jack, an’ see that she don’t ketch you.”

“No more danger than for you.”

“I was ketched onct,” replied Wetzel.

Jonathan Zane looked up at his companion. Wetzel’s head was bowed; but there was no merriment in the serious face exposed to the borderman’s scrutiny.

“Lew, you’re jokin’.”

“Not me. Some day, when you’re ketched good, an’ I have to go back to the lonely trail, as I did afore you an’ me become friends, mebbe then, when I’m the last borderman, I’ll tell you.”

“Lew, ’cordin’ to the way settlers are comin’, in a few more years there won’t be any need for a borderman. When the Injuns are all gone where’ll be our work?”

“’Tain’t likely either of us’ll ever see them times,” said Wetzel, “an’ I don’t want to. Wal, Jack, I’m off now, an’ I’ll meet you here every other day.”

Wetzel shouldered his long rifle, and soon passed out of sight down the mountain-side.

Jonathan arose, shook himself as a big dog might have done, and went down into the valley. Only once did he pause in his descent, and that was when a crackling twig warned him some heavy body was moving near. Silently he sank into the bushes bordering the trail. He listened with his ear close to the ground. Presently he heard a noise as of two hard substances striking together. He resumed his walk, having recognized the grating noise of a deer-hoof striking a rock. Farther down he espied a pair grazing. The buck ran into the thicket; but the doe eyed him curiously.

Less than an hour’s rapid walking brought him to the river. Here he plunged into a thicket of willows, and emerged on a sandy strip of shore. He carefully surveyed the river bank, and then pulled a small birch-bark canoe from among the foliage. He launched the frail craft, paddled across the river and beached it under a reedy, over-hanging bank.

The distance from this point in a straight line to his destination was only a mile; but a rocky bluff and a ravine necessitated his making a wide detour. While lightly leaping over a brook his keen eye fell on an imprint in the sandy loam. Instantly he was on his knees. The footprint was small, evidently a woman’s, and, what was more unusual, instead of the flat, round moccasin-track, it was pointed, with a sharp, square heel. Such shoes were not worn by border girls. True Betty and Nell had them; but they never went into the woods without moccasins.

Jonathan’s experienced eye saw that this imprint was not an hour old. He gazed up at the light. The day was growing short. Already shadows lay in the glens. He would not long have light enough to follow the trail; but he hurried on hoping to find the person who made it before darkness came. He had not traveled many paces before learning that the one who made it was lost. The uncertainty in those hasty steps was as plain to the borderman’s eyes, as if it had been written in words on the sand. The course led along the brook, avoiding the rough places; and leading into the open glades and glens; but it drew no nearer to the settlement. A quarter of an hour of rapid trailing enabled Jonathan to discern a dark figure moving among the trees. Abandoning the trail, he cut across a ridge to head off the lost woman. Stepping out of a sassafras thicket, he came face to face with Helen Sheppard.

“Oh!” she cried in alarm, and then the expression of terror gave place to one of extreme relief and gladness. “Oh! Thank goodness! You’ve found me. I’m lost!”

“I reckon,” answered Jonathan grimly. “The settlement’s only five hundred yards over that hill.”

“I was going the wrong way. Oh! suppose you hadn’t come!” exclaimed Helen, sinking on a log and looking up at him with warm, glad eyes.

“How did you lose your way?” Jonathan asked. He saw neither the warmth in her eyes nor the gladness.

“I went up the hillside, only a little way, after flowers, keeping the fort in sight all the time. Then I saw some lovely violets down a little hill, and thought I might venture. I found such loads of them I forgot everything else, and I must have walked on a little way. On turning to go back I couldn’t find the little hill. I have hunted in vain for the clearing. It seems as if I have been wandering about for hours. I’m so glad you’ve found me!”

“Weren’t you told to stay in the settlement, inside the clearing?” demanded Jonathan.

“Yes,” replied Helen, with her head up.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t choose.”

“You ought to have better sense.”

“It seems I hadn’t,” Helen said quietly, but her eyes belied that calm voice.

“You’re a headstrong child,” Jonathan added curtly.

“Mr. Zane!” cried Helen with pale face.

“I suppose you’ve always had your own sweet will; but out here on the border you ought to think a little of others, if not of yourself.”

Helen maintained a proud silence.

“You might have run right into prowlin’ Shawnees.”

“That dreadful disaster would not have caused you any sorrow,” she flashed out.

“Of course it would. I might have lost my scalp tryin’ to get you back home,” said Jonathan, beginning to hesitate. Plainly he did not know what to make of this remarkable young woman.

“Such a pity to have lost all your fine hair,” she answered with a touch of scorn.

Jonathan flushed, perhaps for the first time in his life. If there was anything he was proud of, it was his long, glossy hair.

“Miss Helen, I’m a poor hand at words,” he said, with a pale, grave face. “I was only speakin’ for your own good.”

“You are exceedingly kind; but need not trouble yourself.”

“Say,” Jonathan hesitated, looking half-vexed at the lovely, angry face. Then an idea occurred to him. “Well, I won’t trouble. Find your way home yourself.”

Abruptly he turned and walked slowly away. He had no idea of allowing her to go home alone; but believed it might be well for her to think so. If she did not call him back he would remain near at hand, and when she showed signs of anxiety or fear he could go to her.

Helen determined she would die in the woods, or be captured by Shawnees, before calling him back. But she watched him. Slowly the tall, strong figure, with its graceful, springy stride, went down the glade. He would be lost to view in a moment, and then she would be alone. How dark it had suddenly become! The gray cloak of twilight was spread over the forest, and in the hollows night already had settled down. A breathless silence pervaded the woods. How lonely! thought Helen, with a shiver. Surely it would be dark before she could find the settlement. What hill hid the settlement from view? She did not know, could not remember which he had pointed out. Suddenly she began to tremble. She had been so frightened before he had found her, and so relieved afterward; and now he was going away.

“Mr. Zane,” she cried with a great effort. “Come back.”

Jonathan kept slowly on.

“Come back, Jonathan, please.”

The borderman retraced his steps.

“Please take me home,” she said, lifting a fair face all flushed, tear-stained, and marked with traces of storm. “I was foolish, and silly to come into the woods, and so glad to see you! But you spoke to me—in—in a way no one ever used before. I’m sure I deserved it. Please take me home. Papa will be worried.”

Softer eyes and voice than hers never entreated man.

“Come,” he said gently, and, taking her by the hand, he led her up the ridge.

Thus they passed through the darkening forest, hand in hand, like a dusky redman and his bride. He helped her over stones and logs, but still held her hand when there was no need of it. She looked up to see him walking, so dark and calm beside her, his eyes ever roving among the trees. Deepest remorse came upon her because of what she had said. There was no sentiment for him in this walk under the dark canopy of the leaves. He realized the responsibility. Any tree might hide a treacherous foe. She would atone for her sarcasm, she promised herself, while walking, ever conscious of her hand in his, her bosom heaving with the sweet, undeniable emotion which came knocking at her heart.

Soon they were out of the thicket, and on the dusty lane. A few moments of rapid walking brought them within sight of the twinkling lights of the village, and a moment later they were at the lane leading to Helen’s home. Releasing her hand, she stopped him with a light touch and said:

“Please don’t tell papa or Colonel Zane.”

“Child, I ought. Some one should make you stay at home.”

“I’ll stay. Please don’t tell. It will worry papa.”

Jonathan Zane looked down into her great, dark, wonderful eyes with an unaccountable feeling. He really did not hear what she asked. Something about that upturned face brought to his mind a rare and perfect flower which grew in far-off rocky fastnesses. The feeling he had was intangible, like no more than a breath of fragrant western wind, faint with tidings of some beautiful field.

“Promise me you won’t tell.”

“Well, lass, have it your own way,” replied Jonathan, wonderingly conscious that it was the first pledge ever asked of him by a woman.

“Thank you. Now we have two secrets, haven’t we?” she laughed, with eyes like stars.

“Run home now, lass. Be careful hereafter. I do fear for you with such spirit an’ temper. I’d rather be scalped by Shawnees than have Bing Legget so much as set eyes on you.”

“You would? Why?” Her voice was like low, soft music.

“Why?” he mused. “It’d seem like a buzzard about to light on a doe.”

“Good-night,” said Helen abruptly, and, wheeling, she hurried down the lane.

CHAPTER VIII

“Jack,” said Colonel Zane to his brother next morning, “today is Saturday and all the men will be in. There was high jinks over at Metzar’s place yesterday, and I’m looking for more today. The two fellows Alex Bennet told me about, came on day-before-yesterday’s boat. Sure enough, one’s a lordly Englishman, and the other, the cussedest-looking little chap I ever saw. They started trouble immediately. The Englishman, his name is Mordaunt, hunted up the Sheppards and as near as I can make out from George’s story, Helen spoke her mind very plainly. Mordaunt and Case, that’s his servant, the little cuss, got drunk and raised hell down at Metzar’s where they’re staying. Brandt and Williams are drinking hard, too, which is something unusual for Brandt. They got chummy at once with the Englishman, who seems to have plenty of gold and is fond of gambling. This Mordaunt is a gentleman, or I never saw one. I feel sorry for him. He appears to be a ruined man. If he lasts a week out here I’ll be surprised. Case looks ugly, as if he were spoiling to cut somebody. I want you to keep your eye peeled. The day may pass off as many other days of drinking bouts have, without anything serious, and on the other hand there’s liable to be trouble.”

Jonathan’s preparations were characteristic of the borderman. He laid aside his rifle, and, removing his short coat, buckled on a second belt containing a heavier tomahawk and knife than those he had been wearing. Then he put on his hunting frock, or shirt, and wore it loose with the belts underneath, instead of on the outside. Unfastened, the frock was rather full, and gave him the appearance of a man unarmed and careless.

Jonathan Zane was not so reckless as to court danger, nor, like many frontiersmen, fond of fighting for its own sake. Colonel Zane was commandant of the fort, and, in a land where there was no law, tried to maintain a semblance of it. For years he had kept thieves, renegades and outlaws away from his little settlement by dealing out stern justice. His word was law, and his bordermen executed it as such. Therefore Jonathan and Wetzel made it their duty to have a keen eye on all that was happening. They kept the colonel posted, and never interfered in any case without orders.

The morning passed quietly. Jonathan strolled here or loitered there; but saw none of the roisterers. He believed they were sleeping off the effects of their orgy on the previous evening. After dinner he smoked his pipe. Betty and Helen passed, and Helen smiled. It struck him suddenly that she had never looked at him in such a way before. There was meaning in that warm, radiant flash. A little sense of vexation, the source of which he did not understand, stirred in him against this girl; but with it came the realization that her white face and big, dark eyes had risen before him often since the night before. He wished, for the first time, that he could understand women better.

“Everything quiet?” asked Colonel Zane, coming out on the steps.

“All quiet,” answered Jonathan.

“They’ll open up later, I suspect. I’m going over to Sheppard’s for a while, and, later, will drop into Metzar’s. I’ll make him haul in a yard or two. I don’t like things I hear about his selling the youngsters rum. I’d like you to be within call.”

The borderman strolled down the bluff and along the path which overhung the river. He disliked Metzar more than his brother suspected, and with more weighty reason than that of selling rum to minors. Jonathan threw himself at length on the ground and mused over the situation.

“We never had any peace in this settlement, an’ never will in our day. Eb is hopeful an’ looks at the bright side, always expectin’ tomorrow will be different. What have the past sixteen years been? One long bloody fight, an’ the next sixteen won’t be any better. I make out that we’ll have a mix-up soon. Metzar an’ Brandt with their allies, whoever they are, will be in it, an’ if Bing Legget’s in the gang, we’ve got, as Wetzel said, a long, hard trail, which may be our last. More’n that, there’ll be trouble about this chain-lightnin’ girl, as Wetzel predicted. Women make trouble anyways; an’ when they’re winsome an’ pretty they cause more; but if they’re beautiful an’ fiery, bent on havin’ their way, as this new lass is, all hell couldn’t hold a candle to them. We don’t need the Shawnees an’ Girtys, an’ hoss thieves round this here settlement to stir up excitin’ times, now we’ve got this dark-eyed lass. An’ yet any fool could see she’s sweet, an’ good, an’ true as gold.”

Toward the middle of the afternoon Jonathan sauntered in the direction of Metzar’s inn. It lay on the front of the bluff, with its main doors looking into the road. A long, one-story log structure with two doors, answered as a bar-room. The inn proper was a building more pretentious, and joined the smaller one at its western end. Several horses were hitched outside, and two great oxen yoked to a cumbersome mud-crusted wagon stood patiently by.

Jonathan bent his tall head as he entered the noisy bar-room. The dingy place reeked with tobacco smoke and the fumes of vile liquor. It was crowded with men. The lawlessness of the time and place was evident. Gaunt, red-faced frontiersmen reeled to and fro across the sawdust floor; hunters and fur-traders, raftsmen and farmers, swelled the motley crowd; young men, honest-faced, but flushed and wild with drink, hung over the bar; a group of sullen-visaged, serpent-eyed Indians held one corner. The black-bearded proprietor dealt out the rum.

From beyond the bar-room, through a door entering upon the back porch, came the rattling of dice. Jonathan crossed the bar-room apparently oblivious to the keen glance Metzar shot at him, and went out upon the porch. This also was crowded, but there was more room because of greater space. At one table sat some pioneers drinking and laughing; at another were three men playing with dice. Colonel Zane, Silas, and Sheppard were among the lookers-on at the game. Jonathan joined them, and gazed at the gamesters.

Brandt he knew well enough; he had seen that set, wolfish expression in the riverman’s face before. He observed, however, that the man had flushed cheeks and trembling hands, indications of hard drinking. The player sitting next to Brandt was Williams, one of the garrison, and a good-natured fellow, but garrulous and wickedly disposed when drunk. The remaining player Jonathan at once saw was the Englishman, Mordaunt. He was a handsome man, with fair skin, and long, silken, blond mustache. Heavy lines, and purple shades under his blue eyes, were die unmistakable stamp of dissipation. Reckless, dissolute, bad as he looked, there yet clung something favorable about the man. Perhaps it was his cool, devil-may-care way as he pushed over gold piece after gold piece from the fast diminishing pile before him. His velvet frock and silken doublet had once been elegant; but were now sadly the worse for border roughing.

Behind the Englishman’s chair Jonathan saw a short man with a face resembling that of a jackal. The grizzled, stubbly beard, the protruding, vicious mouth, the broad, flat nose, and deep-set, small, glittering eyes made a bad impression on the observer. This man, Jonathan concluded, was the servant, Case, who was so eager with his knife. The borderman made the reflection, that if knife-play was the little man’s pastime, he was not likely to go short of sport in that vicinity.

Colonel Zane attracted Jonathan’s attention at this moment. The pioneers had vacated the other table, and Silas and Sheppard now sat by it. The colonel wanted his brother to join them.

“Here, Johnny, bring drinks,” he said to the serving boy. “Tell Metzar who they’re for.” Then turning to Sheppard he continued: “He keeps good whiskey; but few of these poor devils ever see it.” At the same time Colonel Zane pressed his foot upon that of Jonathan’s.

The borderman understood that the signal was intended to call attention to Brandt. The latter had leaned forward, as Jonathan passed by to take a seat with his brother, and said something in a low tone to Mordaunt and Case. Jonathan knew by the way the Englishman and his man quickly glanced up at him, that he had been the subject of the remark.

Suddenly Williams jumped to his feet with an oath.

“I’m cleaned out,” he cried.

“Shall we play alone?” asked Brandt of Mordaunt.

“As you like,” replied the Englishman, in a tone which showed he cared not a whit whether he played or not.

“I’ve got work to do. Let’s have some more drinks, and play another time,” said Brandt.

The liquor was served and drank. Brandt pocketed his pile of Spanish and English gold, and rose to his feet. He was a trifle unsteady; but not drunk.

“Will you gentlemen have a glass with me?” Mordaunt asked of Colonel Zane’s party.

“Thank you, some other time, with pleasure. We have our drink now,” Colonel Zane said courteously.

Meantime Brandt had been whispering in Case’s ear. The little man laughed at something the riverman said. Then he shuffled from behind the table. He was short, his compact build gave promise of unusual strength and agility.

“What are you going to do now?” asked Mordaunt, rising also. He looked hard at Case.

“Shiver my sides, cap’n, if I don’t need another drink,” replied the sailor.

“You have had enough. Come upstairs with me,” said Mordaunt.

“Easy with your hatch, cap’n,” grinned Case. “I want to drink with that ther’ Injun killer. I’ve had drinks with buccaneers, and bad men all over the world, and I’m not going to miss this chance.”

“Come on; you will get into trouble. You must not annoy these gentlemen,” said Mordaunt.

“Trouble is the name of my ship, and she’s a trim, fast craft,” replied the man.

His loud voice had put an end to the convention. Men began to crowd in from the bar-room. Metzar himself came to see what had caused the excitement.

The little man threw up his cap, whooped, and addressed himself to Jonathan:

“Injun-killer, bad man of the border, will you drink with a jolly old tar from England?”

Suddenly a silence reigned, like that in the depths of the forest. To those who knew the borderman, and few did not know him, the invitation was nothing less than an insult. But it did not appear to them, as to him, like a pre-arranged plot to provoke a fight.

“Will you drink, redskin-hunter?” bawled the sailor.

“No,” said Jonathan in his quiet voice.

“Maybe you mean that against old England?” demanded Case fiercely.

The borderman eyed him steadily, inscrutable as to feeling or intent, and was silent.

“Go out there and I’ll see the color of your insides quicker than I’d take a drink,” hissed the sailor, with his brick-red face distorted and hideous to look upon. He pointed with a long-bladed knife that no one had seen him draw, to the green sward beyond the porch.

The borderman neither spoke, nor relaxed a muscle.

“Ho! ho! my brave pirate of the plains!” cried Case, and he leered with braggart sneer into the faces of Jonathan and his companions.

It so happened that Sheppard sat nearest to him, and got the full effect of the sailor’s hot, rum-soaked breath. He arose with a pale face.

“Colonel, I can’t stand this,” he said hastily. “Let’s get away from that drunken ruffian.”

“Who’s a drunken ruffian?” yelled Case, more angry than ever. “I’m not drunk; but I’m going to be, and cut some of you white-livered border mates. Here, you old masthead, drink this to my health, damn you!”

The ruffian had seized a tumbler of liquor from the table, and held it toward Sheppard while he brandished his long knife.

White as snow, Sheppard backed against the wall; but did not take the drink.

The sailor had the floor; no one save him spoke a word. The action had been so rapid that there had hardly been time. Colonel Zane and Silas were as quiet and tense as the borderman.

“Drink!” hoarsely cried the sailor, advancing his knife toward Sheppard’s body.

When the sharp point all but pressed against the old man, a bright object twinkled through the air. It struck Case’s wrist, knocked the knife from his fingers, and, bounding against the wall, fell upon the floor. It was a tomahawk.

The borderman sprang over the table like a huge catamount, and with movement equally quick, knocked Case with a crash against the wall; closed on him before he could move a hand, and flung him like a sack of meal over the bluff.

The tension relieved, some of the crowd laughed, others looked over the embankment to see how Case had fared, and others remarked that for some reason he had gotten off better than they expected.

The borderman remained silent. He leaned against a post, with broad breast gently heaving, but his eyes sparkled as they watched Brandt, Williams, Mordaunt and Metzar. The Englishman alone spoke.

“Handily done,” he said, cool and suave. “Sir, yours is an iron hand. I apologize for this unpleasant affair. My man is quarrelsome when under the influence of liquor.”

“Metzar, a word with you,” cried Colonel Zane curtly.

“Come inside, kunnel,” said the innkeeper, plainly ill at ease.

“No; listen here. I’ll speak to the point. You’ve got to stop running this kind of a place. No words, now, you’ve got to stop. Understand? You know as well as I, perhaps better, the character of your so-called inn. You’ll get but one more chance.”

“Wal, kunnel, this is a free country,” growled Metzar. “I can’t help these fellars comin’ here lookin’ fer blood. I runs an honest place. The men want to drink an’ gamble. What’s law here? What can you do?”

“You know me, Metzar,” Colonel Zane said grimly. “I don’t waste words. ‘To hell with law!’ so you say. I can say that, too. Remember, the next drunken boy I see, or shady deal, or gambling spree, out you go for good.”

Metzar lowered his shaggy head and left the porch. Brandt and his friends, with serious faces, withdrew into the bar-room.

The borderman walked around the corner of the inn, and up the lane. The colonel, with Silas and Sheppard, followed in more leisurely fashion. At a shout from someone they turned to see a dusty, bloody figure, with ragged clothes, stagger up from the bluff.

“There’s that blamed sailor now,” said Sheppard. “He’s a tough nut. My! What a knock on the head Jonathan gave him. Strikes me, too, that tomahawk came almost at the right time to save me a whole skin.”

“I was furious, but not at all alarmed,” rejoined Colonel Zane.

“I wondered what made you so quiet.”

“I was waiting. Jonathan never acts until the right moment, and then—well, you saw him. The little villain deserved killing. I could have shot him with pleasure. Do you know, Sheppard, Jonathan’s aversion to shedding blood is a singular thing. He’d never kill the worst kind of a white man until driven to it.”

“That’s commendable. How about Wetzel?”

“Well, Lew is different,” replied Colonel Zane with a shudder. “If I told him to take an ax and clean out Metzar’s place—God! what a wreck he’d make of it. Maybe I’ll have to tell him, and if I do, you’ll see something you can never forget.”

CHAPTER IX

On Sunday morning under the bright, warm sun, the little hamlet of Fort Henry lay peacefully quiet, as if no storms had ever rolled and thundered overhead, no roistering ever disturbed its stillness, and no Indian’s yell ever horribly broke the quiet.

“’Tis a fine morning,” said Colonel Zane, joining his sister on the porch. “Well, how nice you look! All in white for the first time since—well, you do look charming. You’re going to church, of course.”

“Yes, I invited Helen and her cousin to go. I’ve persuaded her to teach my Sunday-school class, and I’ll take another of older children,” replied Betty.

“That’s well. The youngsters don’t have much chance to learn out here. But we’ve made one great stride. A church and a preacher means very much to young people. Next shall come the village school.”

“Helen and I might teach our classes an hour or two every afternoon.”

“It would be a grand thing if you did! Fancy these tots growing up unable to read or write. I hate to think of it; but the Lord knows I’ve done my best. I’ve had my troubles in keeping them alive.”

“Helen suggested the day school. She takes the greatest interest in everything and everybody. Her energy is remarkable. She simply must move, must do something. She overflows with kindness and sympathy. Yesterday she cried with happiness when Mabel told her Alex was eager to be married very soon. I tell you, Eb, Helen is a fine character.”

“Yes, good as she is pretty, which is saying some,” mused the colonel. “I wonder who’ll be the lucky fellow to win her.”

“It’s hard to say. Not that Englishman, surely. She hates him. Jonathan might. You should see her eyes when he is mentioned.”

“Say, Betts, you don’t mean it?” eagerly asked her brother.

“Yes, I do,” returned Betty, nodding her head positively. “I’m not easily deceived about those things. Helen’s completely fascinated with Jack. She might be only a sixteen-year-old girl for the way she betrays herself to me.”

“Betty, I have a beautiful plan.”

“No doubt; you’re full of them.”

“We can do it, Betty, we can, you and I,” he said, as he squeezed her arm.

“My dear old matchmaking brother,” returned Betty, laughing, “it takes two to make a bargain. Jack must be considered.”

“Bosh!” exclaimed the colonel, snapping his fingers. “You needn’t tell me any young man—any man, could resist that glorious girl.”

“Perhaps not; I couldn’t if I were a man. But Jack’s not like other people. He’d never realize that she cared for him. Besides, he’s a borderman.”

“I know, and that’s the only serious obstacle. But he could scout around the fort, even if he was married. These long, lonely, terrible journeys taken by him and Wetzel are mostly unnecessary. A sweet wife could soon make him see that. The border will be civilized in a few years, and because of that he’d better give over hunting for Indians. I’d like to see him married and settled down, like all the rest of us, even Isaac. You know Jack’s the last of the Zanes, that is, the old Zanes. The difficulty arising from his extreme modesty and bashfulness can easily be overcome.”

“How, most wonderful brother?”

“Easy as pie. Tell Jack that Helen is dying of love for him, and tell her that Jack loves—”

“But, dear Eb, that latter part is not true,” interposed Betty.

“True, of course it’s true, or would be in any man who wasn’t as blind as a bat. We’ll tell her Jack cares for her; but he is a borderman with stern ideas of duty, and so slow and backward he’d never tell his love even if he had overcome his tricks of ranging. That would settle it with any girl worth her salt, and this one will fetch Jack in ten days, or less.”

“Eb, you’re a devil,” said Betty gaily, and then she added in a more sober vein, “I understand, Eb. Your idea is prompted by love of Jack, and it’s all right. I never see him go out of the clearing but I think it may be for the last time, even as on that day so long ago when brother Andrew waved his cap to us, and never came back. Jack is the best man in the world, and I, too, want to see him happy, with a wife, and babies, and a settled occupation in life. I think we might weave a pretty little romance. Shall we try?”

“Try? We’ll do it! Now, Betts, you explain it to both. You can do it smoother than I, and telling them is really the finest point of our little plot. I’ll help the good work along afterwards. He’ll be out presently. Nail him at once.”

Jonathan, all unconscious of the deep-laid scheme to make him happy, soon came out on the porch, and stretched his long arms as he breathed freely of the morning air.

“Hello, Jack, where are you bound?” asked Betty, clasping one of his powerful, buckskin-clad knees with her arm.

“I reckon I’ll go over to the spring,” he replied, patting her dark, glossy head.

“Do you know I want to tell you something, Jack, and it’s quite serious,” she said, blushing a little at her guilt; but resolute to carry out her part of the plot.

“Well, dear?” he asked as she hesitated.

“Do you like Helen?”

“That is a question,” Jonathan replied after a moment.

“Never mind; tell me,” she persisted.

He made no answer.

“Well, Jack, she’s—she’s wildly in love with you.”

The borderman stood very still for several moments. Then, with one step he gained the lawn, and turned to confront her.

“What’s that you say?”

Betty trembled a little. He spoke so sharply, his eyes were bent on her so keenly, and he looked so strong, so forceful that she was almost afraid. But remembering that she had said only what, to her mind, was absolutely true, she raised her eyes and repeated the words:

“Helen is wildly’in love with you.”

“Betty, you wouldn’t joke about such a thing; you wouldn’t lie to me, I know you wouldn’t.”

“No, Jack dear.”

She saw his powerful frame tremble, even as she had seen more than one man tremble, during the siege, under the impact of a bullet.

Without speaking, he walked rapidly down the path toward the spring.

Colonel Zane came out of his hiding-place behind the porch and, with a face positively electrifying in its glowing pleasure, beamed upon his sister.

“Gee! Didn’t he stalk off like an Indian chief!” he said, chuckling with satisfaction. “By George! Betts, you must have got in a great piece of work. I never in my life saw Jack look like that.”

Colonel Zane sat down by Betty’s side and laughed softly but heartily.

“We’ll fix him all right, the lonely hill-climber! Why, he hasn’t a ghost of a chance. Wait until she sees him after hearing your story! I tell you, Betty—why—damme! you’re crying!”

He had turned to find her head lowered, while she shaded her face with her hand.

“Now, Betty, just a little innocent deceit like that—what harm?” he said, taking her hand. He was as tender as a woman.

“Oh, Eb, it wasn’t that. I didn’t mind telling him. Only the flash in his eyes reminded me of—of Alfred.”

“Surely it did. Why not? Almost everything brings up a tender memory for someone we’ve loved and lost. But don’t cry, Betty.”

She laughed a little, and raised a face with its dark cheeks flushed and tear-stained.

“I’m silly, I suppose; but I can’t help it. I cry at least once every day.”

“Brace up. Here come Helen and Will. Don’t let them see you grieved. My! Helen in pure white, too! This is a conspiracy to ruin the peace of the masculine portion of Fort Henry.”

Betty went forward to meet her friends while Colonel Zane continued talking, but now to himself. “What a fatal beauty she has!” His eyes swept over Helen with the pleasure of an artist. The fair richness of her skin, the perfect lips, the wavy, shiny hair, the wondrous dark-blue, changing eyes, the tall figure, slender, but strong and swelling with gracious womanhood, made a picture he delighted in and loved to have near him. The girl did not possess for him any of that magnetism, so commonly felt by most of her admirers; but he did feel how subtly full she was of something, which for want of a better term he described in Wetzel’s characteristic expression, as “chain-lightning.”

He reflected that as he was so much older, that she, although always winsome and earnest, showed nothing of the tormenting, bewildering coquetry of her nature. Colonel Zane prided himself on his discernment, and he had already observed that Helen had different sides of character for different persons. To Betty, Mabel, Nell, and the children, she was frank, girlish, full of fun and always lovable; to her elders quiet and earnestly solicitous to please; to the young men cold; but with a penetrating, mocking promise haunting that coldness, and sometimes sweetly agreeable, often wilful, and changeable as April winds. At last the colonel concluded that she needed, as did all other spirited young women, the taming influence of a man whom she loved, a home to care for, and children to soften and temper her spirit.

“Well, young friends, I see you count on keeping the Sabbath,” he said cheerily. “For my part, Will, I don’t see how Jim Douns can preach this morning, before this laurel blossom and that damask rose.”

“How poetical! Which is which?” asked Betty.

“Flatterer!” laughed Helen, shaking her finger.

“And a married man, too!” continued Betty.

“Well, being married has not affected my poetical sentiment, nor impaired my eyesight.”

“But it has seriously inconvenienced your old propensity of making love to the girls. Not that you wouldn’t if you dared,” replied Betty with mischief in her eye.

“Now, Will, what do you think of that? Isn’t it real sisterly regard? Come, we’ll go and look at my thoroughbreds,” said Colonel Zane.

“Where is Jonathan?” Helen asked presently. “Something happened at Metzar’s yesterday. Papa wouldn’t tell me, and I want to ask Jonathan.”

“Jack is down by the spring. He spends a great deal of his time there. It’s shady and cool, and the water babbles over the stones.”

“How much alone he is,” said Helen.

Betty took her former position on the steps, but did not raise her eyes while she continued speaking. “Yes, he’s more alone than ever lately, and quieter, too. He hardly ever speaks now. There must be something on his mind more serious than horse-thieves.”

“What?” Helen asked quickly.

“I’d better not tell—you.”

A long moment passed before Helen spoke.

“Please tell me!”

“Well, Helen, we think, Eb and I, that Jack is in love for the first time in his life, and with you, you adorable creature. But Jack’s a borderman; he is stern in his principles, thinks he is wedded to his border life, and he knows that he has both red and white blood on his hands. He’d die before he’d speak of his love, because he cannot understand that would do any good, even if you loved him, which is, of course, preposterous.”

“Loves me!” breathed Helen softly.

She sat down rather beside Betty, and turned her face away. She still held the young woman’s hand which she squeezed so tightly as to make its owner wince. Betty stole a look at her, and saw the rich red blood mantling her cheeks, and her full bosom heave.

Helen turned presently, with no trace of emotion except a singular brilliance of the eyes. She was so slow to speak again that Colonel Zane and Will returned from the corral before she found her voice.

“Colonel Zane, please tell me about last night. When papa came home to supper he was pale and very nervous. I knew something had happened. But he would not explain, which made me all the more anxious. Won’t you please tell me?”

Colonel Zane glanced again at her, and knew what had happened. Despite her self-possession those tell-tale eyes told her secret. Ever-changing and shadowing with a bounding, rapturous light, they were indeed the windows of her soul. All the emotion of a woman’s heart shone there, fear, beauty, wondering appeal, trembling joy, and timid hope.

“Tell you? Indeed I will,” replied Colonel Zane, softened and a little remorseful under those wonderful eyes.

No one liked to tell a story better than Colonel Zane. Briefly and graphically he related the circumstances of the affair leading to the attack on Helen’s father, and, as the tale progressed, he became quite excited, speaking with animated face and forceful gestures.

“Just as the knife-point touched your father, a swiftly-flying object knocked the weapon to the floor. It was Jonathan’s tomahawk. What followed was so sudden I hardly saw it. Like lightning, and flexible as steel, Jonathan jumped over the table, smashed Case against the wall, pulled him up and threw him over the bank. I tell you, Helen, it was a beautiful piece of action; but not, of course, for a woman’s eyes. Now that’s all. Your father was not even hurt.”

“He saved papa’s life,” murmured Helen, standing like a statue.

She wheeled suddenly with that swift bird-like motion habitual to her, and went quickly down the path leading to the spring.

* * * *

Jonathan Zane, solitary dreamer of dreams as he was, had never been in as strange and beautiful a reverie as that which possessed him on this Sabbath morning.

Deep into his heart had sunk Betty’s words. The wonder of it, the sweetness, that alone was all he felt. The glory of this girl had begun, days past, to spread its glamour round him. Swept irresistibly away now, he soared aloft in a dream-castle of fancy with its painted windows and golden walls.

For the first time in his life on the border he had entered the little glade and had no eye for the crystal water flowing over the pebbles and mossy stones, or the plot of grassy ground inclosed by tall, dark trees and shaded by a canopy of fresh green and azure blue. Nor did he hear the music of the soft rushing water, the warbling birds, or the gentle sighing breeze moving the leaves.

Gone, vanished, lost today was that sweet companionship of nature. That indefinable and unutterable spirit which flowed so peacefully to him from his beloved woods; that something more than merely affecting his senses, which existed for him in the stony cliffs, and breathed with life through the lonely aisles of the forest, had fled before the fateful power of a woman’s love and beauty.

A long time that seemed only a moment passed while he leaned against a stone. A light step sounded on the path.

A vision in pure white entered the glade; two little hands pressed his, and two dark-blue eyes of misty beauty shed their light on him.

“Jonathan, I am come to thank you.”

Sweet and tremulous, the voice sounded far away.

“Thank me? For what?”

“You saved papa’s life. Oh! how can I thank you?”

No voice answered for him.

“I have nothing to give but this.”

A flower-like face was held up to him; hands light as thistledown touched his shoulders; dark-blue eyes glowed upon him with all tenderness.

“May I thank you—so?”

Soft lips met his full and lingeringly.

Then came a rush as of wind, a flash of white, and the patter of flying feet. He was alone in the glade.

CHAPTER X

June passed; July opened with unusually warm weather, and Fort Henry had no visits from Indians or horse-thieves, nor any inconvenience except the hot sun. It was the warmest weather for many years, and seriously dwarfed the settlers’ growing corn. Nearly all the springs were dry, and a drouth menaced the farmers.

The weather gave Helen an excuse which she was not slow to adopt. Her pale face and languid air perplexed and worried her father and her friends. She explained to them that the heat affected her disagreeably.

Long days had passed since that Sunday morning when she kissed the borderman. What transports of sweet hope and fear were hers then! How shame had scorched her happiness! Yet still she gloried in the act. By that kiss had she awakened to a full consciousness of her love. With insidious stealth and ever-increasing power this flood had increased to full tide, and, bursting its bonds, surged over her with irresistible strength.

During the first days after the dawning of her passion, she lived in its sweetness, hearing only melodious sounds chiming in her soul. The hours following that Sunday were like long dreams. But as all things reach fruition, so this girlish period passed, leaving her a thoughtful woman. She began to gather up the threads of her life where love had broken them, to plan nobly, and to hope and wait.

Weeks passed, however, and her lover did not come. Betty told her that Jonathan made flying trips at break of day to hold council with Colonel Zane; that he and Wetzel were on the trail of Shawnees with stolen horses, and both bordermen were in their dark, vengeful, terrible moods. In these later days Helen passed through many stages of feeling. After the exalting mood of hot, young love, came reaction. She fell into the depths of despair. Sorrow paled her face, thinned her cheeks and lent another shadow, a mournful one, to her great eyes. The constant repression of emotion, the strain of trying to seem cheerful when she was miserable, threatened even her magnificent health. She answered the solicitude of her friends by evasion, and then by that innocent falsehood in which a sensitive soul hides its secrets. Shame was only natural, because since the borderman came not, nor sent her a word, pride whispered that she had wooed him, forgetting modesty.

Pride, anger, shame, despair, however, finally fled before affection. She loved this wild borderman, and knew he loved her in return although he might not understand it himself. His simplicity, his lack of experience with women, his hazardous life and stern duty regarding it, pleaded for him and for her love. For the lack of a little understanding she would never live unhappy and alone while she was loved. Better give a thousand times more than she had sacrificed. He would return to the village some day, when the Indians and the thieves were run down, and would be his own calm, gentle self. Then she would win him, break down his allegiance to this fearful border life, and make him happy in her love.

While Helen was going through one of the fires of life to come out sweeter and purer, if a little pensive and sad, time, which waits not for love, nor life, nor death, was hastening onward, and soon the golden fields of grain were stored. September came with its fruitful promise fulfilled.

Helen entered once more into the quiet, social life of the little settlement, taught her class on Sundays, did all her own work, and even found time to bring a ray of sunshine to more than one sick child’s bed. Yet she did not forget her compact with Jonathan, and bent all her intelligence to find some clew that might aid in the capture of the horse-thief. She was still groping in the darkness. She could not, however, banish the belief that the traitor was Brandt. She blamed herself for this, because of having no good reasons for suspicion; but the conviction was there, fixed by intuition. Because a man’s eyes were steely gray, sharp like those of a cat’s, and capable of the same contraction and enlargement, there was no reason to believe their owner was a criminal. But that, Helen acknowledged with a smile, was the only argument she had. To be sure Brandt had looked capable of anything, the night Jonathan knocked him down; she knew he had incited Case to begin the trouble at Metzar’s, and had seemed worried since that time. He had not left the settlement on short journeys, as had been his custom before the affair in the bar-room. And not a horse had disappeared from Fort Henry since that time.

Brandt had not discontinued his attentions to her; if they were less ardent it was because she had given him absolutely to understand that she could be his friend only. And she would not have allowed even so much except for Jonathan’s plan. She fancied it was possible to see behind Brandt’s courtesy, the real subtle, threatening man. Stripped of his kindliness, an assumed virtue, the iron man stood revealed, cold, calculating, cruel.

Mordaunt she never saw but once and then, shocking and pitiful, he lay dead drunk in the grass by the side of the road, his pale, weary, handsome face exposed to the pitiless rays of the sun. She ran home weeping over this wreck of what had once been so fine a gentleman. Ah! the curse of rum! He had learned his soft speech and courtly bearing in the refinement of a home where a proud mother adored, and gentle sisters loved him. And now, far from the kindred he had disgraced, he lay in the road like a log. How it hurt her! She almost wished she could have loved him, if love might have redeemed. She was more kind to her other admirers, more tolerant of Brandt, and could forgive the Englishman, because the pangs she had suffered through love had softened her spirit.

During this long period the growing friendship of her cousin for Betty had been a source of infinite pleasure to Helen. She hoped and believed a romance would develop between the young widow and Will, and did all in her power, slyly abetted by the matchmaking colonel, to bring the two together.

One afternoon when the sky was clear with that intense blue peculiar to bright days in early autumn, Helen started out toward Betty’s, intending to remind that young lady she had promised to hunt for clematis and other fall flowers.

About half-way to Betty’s home she met Brandt. He came swinging round a corner with his quick, firm step. She had not seen him for several days, and somehow he seemed different. A brightness, a flash, as of daring expectation, was in his face. The poise, too, of the man had changed.

“Well, I am fortunate. I was just going to your home,” he said cheerily. “Won’t you come for a walk with me?”

“You may walk with me to Betty’s,” Helen answered.

“No, not that. Come up the hillside. We’ll get some goldenrod. I’d like to have a chat with you. I may go away—I mean I’m thinking of making a short trip,” he added hurriedly.

“Please come.”

“I promised to go to Betty’s.”

“You won’t come?” His voice trembled with mingled disappointment and resentment.

“No,” Helen replied in slight surprise.

“You have gone with the other fellows. Why not with me?” He was white now, and evidently laboring under powerful feelings that must have had their origin in some thought or plan which hinged on the acceptance of his invitation.

“Because I choose not to,” Helen replied coldly, meeting his glance fully.

A dark red flush swelled Brandt’s face and neck; his gray eyes gleamed balefully with wolfish glare; his teeth were clenched. He breathed hard and trembled with anger. Then, by a powerful effort, he conquered himself; the villainous expression left his face; the storm of rage subsided. Great incentive there must have been for him thus to repress his emotions so quickly. He looked long at her with sinister, intent regard; then, with the laugh of a desperado, a laugh which might have indicated contempt for the failure of his suit, and which was fraught with a world of meaning, of menace, he left her without so much as a salute.

Helen pondered over this sudden change, and felt relieved because she need make no further pretense of friendship. He had shown himself to be what she had instinctively believed. She hurried on toward Betty’s, hoping to find Colonel Zane at home, and with Jonathan, for Brandt’s hint of leaving Fort Henry, and his evident chagrin at such a slip of speech, had made her suspicious. She was informed by Mrs. Zane that the colonel had gone to a log-raising; Jonathan had not been in for several days, and Betty went away with Will.

“Where did they go?” asked Helen.

“I’m not sure; I think down to the spring.”

Helen followed the familiar path through the grove of oaks into the glade. It was quite deserted. Sitting on the stone against which Jonathan had leaned the day she kissed him, she gave way to tender reflection. Suddenly she was disturbed by the sound of rapid footsteps, and looking up, saw the hulking form of Metzar, the innkeeper, coming down the path. He carried a bucket, and meant evidently to get water. Helen did not desire to be seen, and, thinking he would stay only a moment, slipped into a thicket of willows behind the stone. She could see plainly through the foliage. Metzar came into the glade, peered around in the manner of a man expecting to see someone, and then, filling his bucket at the spring, sat down on the stone.

Not a minute elapsed before soft, rapid footsteps sounded in the distance. The bushes parted, disclosing the white, set face and gray eyes of Roger Brandt. With a light spring he cleared the brook and approached Metzar.

Before speaking he glanced around the glade with the fugitive, distrustful glance of a man who suspects even the trees. Then, satisfied by the scrutiny he opened his hunting frock, taking forth a long object which he thrust toward Metzar.

It was an Indian arrow.

Metzar’s dull gaze traveled from this to the ominous face of Brandt.

“See there, you! Look at this arrow! Shot by the best Indian on the border into the window of my room. I hadn’t been there a minute when it came from the island. God! but it was a great shot!”

“Hell!” gasped Metzar, his dull face quickening with some awful thought.

“I guess it is hell,” replied Brandt, his face growing whiter and wilder.

“Our game’s up?” questioned Metzar with haggard cheek.

“Up? Man! We haven’t a day, maybe less, to shake Fort Henry.”

“What does it mean?” asked Metzar. He was the calmer of the two.

“It’s a signal. The Shawnees, who were in hiding with the horses over by Blueberry swamp, have been flushed by those bordermen. Some of them have escaped; at least one, for no one but Ashbow could shoot that arrow across the river.”

“Suppose he hadn’t come?” whispered Metzar hoarsely.

Brandt answered him with a dark, shuddering gaze.

A twig snapped in the thicket. Like foxes at the click of a trap, these men whirled with fearsome glances.

“Ugh!” came a low, guttural voice from the bushes, and an Indian of magnificent proportions and somber, swarthy features, entered the glade.

CHAPTER XI

The savage had just emerged from the river, for his graceful, copper-colored body and scanty clothing were dripping with water. He carried a long bow and a quiver of arrows.

Brandt uttered an exclamation of surprise, and Metzar a curse, as the lithe Indian leaped the brook. He was not young. His swarthy face was lined, seamed, and terrible with a dark impassiveness.

“Paleface-brother-get-arrow,” he said in halting English, as his eyes flashed upon Brandt. “Chief-want-make-sure.”

The white man leaned forward, grasped the Indian’s arm, and addressed him in an Indian language. This questioning was evidently in regard to his signal, the whereabouts of others of the party, and why he took such fearful risks almost in the village. The Indian answered with one English word.

“Deathwind!”

Brandt drew back with drawn, white face, while a whistling breath escaped him.

“I knew it, Metz. Wetzel!” he exclaimed in a husky voice.

The blood slowly receded from Metzar’s evil, murky face, leaving it haggard.

“Deathwind-on-Chief’s-trail-up-Eagle Rock,” continued the Indian. “Deathwind-fooled-not-for-long. Chief-wait-paleface-brothers at Two Islands.”

The Indian stepped into the brook, parted the willows, and was gone as he had come, silently.

“We know what to expect,” said Brandt in calmer tone as the daring cast of countenance returned to him. “There’s an Indian for you! He got away, doubled like an old fox on his trail, and ran in here to give us a chance at escape. Now you know why Bing Legget can’t be caught.”

“Let’s dig at once,” replied Metzar, with no show of returning courage such as characterized his companion.

Brandt walked to and fro with bent brows, like one in deep thought. Suddenly he turned upon Metzar eyes which were brightly hard, and reckless with resolve.

“By Heaven! I’ll do it! Listen. Wetzel has gone to the top of Eagle Mountain, where he and Zane have a rendezvous. Even he won’t suspect the cunning of this Indian; anyway it’ll be after daylight tomorrow before he strikes the trail. I’ve got twenty-four hours, and more, to get this girl, and I’ll do it!”

“Bad move to have weight like her on a march,” said Metzar.

“Bah! The thing’s easy. As for you, go on, push ahead after we’re started. All I ask is that you stay by me until the time to cut loose.”

“I ain’t agoin’ to crawfish now,” growled Metzar. “Strikes me, too, I’m losin’ more’n you.”

“You won’t be a loser if you can get back to Detroit with your scalp. I’ll pay you in horses and gold. Once we reach Legget’s place we’re safe.”

“What’s yer plan about gittin’ the gal?” asked Metzar.

Brandt leaned forward and spoke eagerly, but in a low tone.

“Git away on hoss-back?” questioned Metzar, visibly brightening. “Wal, that’s some sense. Kin ye trust ther other party?”

“I’m sure I can,” rejoined Brandt.

“It’ll be a good job, a good job an’ all done in daylight, too. Bing Legget couldn’t plan better,” Metzar said, rubbing his hands,

“We’ve fooled these Zanes and their fruit-raising farmers for a year, and our time is about up,” Brandt muttered. “One more job and we’ve done. Once with Legget we’re safe, and then we’ll work slowly back towards Detroit. Let’s get out of here now, for someone may come at any moment.”

The plotters separated, Brandt going through the grove, and Metzar down the path by which he had come.

* * * *

Helen, trembling with horror of what she had heard, raised herself cautiously from the willows where she had lain, and watched the innkeeper’s retreating figure. When it had disappeared she gave a little gasp of relief. Free now to run home, there to plan what course must be pursued, she conquered her fear and weakness, and hurried from the glade. Luckily, so far as she was able to tell, no one saw her return. She resolved that she would be cool, deliberate, clever, worthy of the borderman’s confidence.

First she tried to determine the purport of this interview between Brandt and Metzar. She recalled to mind all that was said, and supplied what she thought had been suggested. Brandt and Metzar were horse-thieves, aids of Bing Legget. They had repaired to the glade to plan. The Indian had been a surprise. Wetzel had routed the Shawnees, and was now on the trail of this chieftain. The Indian warned them to leave Fort Henry and to meet him at a place called Two Islands. Brandt’s plan, presumably somewhat changed by the advent of the red-man, was to steal horses, abduct a girl in broad daylight, and before tomorrow’s sunset escape to join the ruffian Legget.

“I am the girl,” murmured Helen shudderingly, as she relapsed momentarily into girlish fears. But at once she rose above selfish feelings.

Secondly, while it was easy to determine what the outlaws meant, the wisest course was difficult to conceive. She had promised the borderman to help him, and not speak of anything she learned to any but himself. She could not be true to him if she asked advice. The point was clear; either she must remain in the settlement hoping for Jonathan’s return in time to frustrate Brandt’s villainous scheme, or find the borderman. Suddenly she remembered Metzar’s allusion to a second person whom Brandt felt certain he could trust. This meant another traitor in Fort Henry, another horse-thief, another desperado willing to make off with helpless women.

Helen’s spirit rose in arms. She had their secret, and could ruin them. She would find the borderman.

Wetzel was on the trail at Eagle Rock. What for? Trailing an Indian who was then five miles east of that rock? Not Wetzel! He was on that track to meet Jonathan. Otherwise, with the redskins near the river, he would have been closer to them. He would meet Jonathan there at sunset today, Helen decided.

She paced the room, trying to still her throbbing heart and trembling hands.

“I must be calm,” she said sternly. “Time is precious. I have not a moment to lose. I will find him. I’ve watched that mountain many a time, and can find the trail and the rock. I am in more danger here, than out there in the forest. With Wetzel and Jonathan on the mountain side, the Indians have fled it. But what about the savage who warned Brandt? Let me think. Yes, he’ll avoid the river; he’ll go round south of the settlement, and, therefore, can’t see me cross. How fortunate that I have paddled a canoe many times across the river. How glad that I made Colonel Zane describe the course up the mountains!”

Her resolution fixed, Helen changed her skirt for one of buckskin, putting on leggings and moccasins of the same serviceable material. She filled the pockets of a short, rain-proof jacket with biscuits, and, thus equipped, sallied forth with a spirit and exultation she could not subdue. Only one thing she feared, which was that Brandt or Metzar might see her cross the river. She launched her canoe and paddled down stream, under cover of the bluff, to a point opposite the end of the island, then straight across, keeping the island between her and the settlement. Gaining the other shore, Helen pulled the canoe into the willows, and mounted the bank. A thicket of willow and alder made progress up the steep incline difficult, but once out of it she faced a long stretch of grassy meadowland. A mile beyond began the green, billowy rise of that mountain which she intended to climb.

Helen’s whole soul was thrown into the adventure. She felt her strong young limbs in accord with her heart.

“Now, Mr. Brandt, horse-thief and girl-snatcher, we’ll see,” she said with scornful lips. “If I can’t beat you now I’m not fit to be Betty Zane’s friend; and am unworthy of a borderman’s trust.”

She traversed the whole length of meadowland close under the shadow of the fringed bank, and gained the forest. Here she hesitated. All was so wild and still. No definite course through the woods seemed to invite, and yet all was open. Trees, trees, dark, immovable trees everywhere. The violent trembling of poplar and aspen leaves, when all others were so calm, struck her strangely, and the fearful stillness awed her. Drawing a deep breath she started forward up the gently rising ground.

As she advanced the open forest became darker, and of wilder aspect. The trees were larger and closer together. Still she made fair progress without deviating from the course she had determined upon. Before her rose a ridge, with a ravine on either side, reaching nearly to the summit of the mountain. Here the underbrush was scanty, the fallen trees had slipped down the side, and the rocks were not so numerous, all of which gave her reason to be proud, so far, of her judgment.

Helen, pressing onward and upward, forgot time and danger, while she reveled in the wonder of the forestland. Birds and squirrels fled before her; whistling and wheezing of alarm, or heavy crashings in the bushes, told of frightened wild beasts. A dull, faint roar, like a distant wind, suggested tumbling waters. A single birch tree, gleaming white among the black trees, enlivened the gloomy forest. Patches of sunlight brightened the shade. Giant ferns, just tinging with autumn colors, waved tips of sculptured perfection. Most wonderful of all were the colored leaves, as they floated downward with a sad, gentle rustle.

Helen was brought to a realization of her hazardous undertaking by a sudden roar of water, and the abrupt termination of the ridge in a deep gorge. Grasping a tree she leaned over to look down. It was fully an hundred feet deep, with impassable walls, green-stained and damp, at the bottom of which a brawling, brown brook rushed on its way. Fully twenty feet wide, it presented an insurmountable barrier to further progress in that direction.

But Helen looked upon it merely as a difficulty to be overcome. She studied the situation, and decided to go to the left because higher ground was to be seen that way. Abandoning the ridge, she pressed on, keeping as close to the gorge as she dared, and came presently to a fallen tree lying across the dark cleft. Without a second’s hesitation, for she knew such would be fatal, she stepped upon the tree and started across, looking at nothing but the log under her feet, while she tried to imagine herself walking across the water-gate, at home in Virginia.

She accomplished the venture without a misstep. When safely on the ground once more she felt her knees tremble and a queer, light feeling came into her head. She laughed, however, as she rested a moment. It would take more than a gorge to discourage her, she resolved with set lips, as once again she made her way along the rising ground.

Perilous, if not desperate, work was ahead of her. Broken, rocky ground, matted thicket, and seemingly impenetrable forest, rose darkly in advance. But she was not even tired, and climbed, crawled, twisted and turned on her way upward. She surmounted a rocky ledge, to face a higher ridge covered with splintered, uneven stones, and the fallen trees of many storms. Once she slipped and fell, spraining her wrist. At length this uphill labor began to weary her. To breathe caused a pain in her side and she was compelled to rest.

Already the gray light of coming night shrouded the forest. She was surprised at seeing the trees become indistinct; because the shadows hovered over the thickets, and noted that the dark, dim outline of the ridges was fading into obscurity.

She struggled on up the uneven slope with a tightening at her heart which was not all exhaustion. For the first time she doubted herself, but it was too late. She could not turn back. Suddenly she felt that she was on a smoother, easier course. Not to strike a stone or break a twig seemed unusual. It might be a path worn by deer going to a spring. Then into her troubled mind flashed the joyful thought, she had found a trail.

Soft, wiry grass, springing from a wet soil, rose under her feet. A little rill trickled alongside the trail. Mossy, soft-cushioned stones lay imbedded here and there. Young maples and hickories grew breast-high on either side, and the way wound in and out under the lowering shade of forest monarchs.

Swiftly ascending this path she came at length to a point where it was possible to see some distance ahead. The ascent became hardly noticeable. Then, as she turned a bend of the trail, the light grew brighter and brighter, until presently all was open and clear. An oval space, covered with stones, lay before her. A big, blasted chestnut stood near by. Beyond was the dim, purple haze of distance. Above, the pale, blue sky just faintly rose-tinted by the setting sun. Far to her left the scraggly trees of a low hill were tipped with orange and russet shades. She had reached the summit.

Desolate and lonely was this little plateau. Helen felt immeasurably far away from home. Yet she could see in the blue distance the glancing river, the dark fort, and that cluster of cabins which marked the location of Fort Henry. Sitting upon the roots of the big chestnut tree she gazed around. There were the remains of a small camp-fire. Beyond, a hollow under a shelving rock. A bed of dry leaves lay packed in this shelter. Some one had been here, and she doubted not that it was the borderman.

She was so tired and her wrist pained so severely that she lay back against the tree-trunk, closed her eyes and rested. A weariness, the apathy of utter exhaustion, came over her. She wished the bordermen would hurry and come before she went to sleep.

Drowsily she was sinking into slumber when a long, low rumble aroused her. How dark it had suddenly become! A sheet of pale light flared across the overcast heavens.

“A storm!” exclaimed Helen. “Alone on this mountain-top with a storm coming. Am I frightened? I don’t believe it. At least I’m safe from that ruffian Brandt. Oh! if my borderman would only come!”

Helen changed her position from beside the tree, to the hollow under the stone. It was high enough to permit of her sitting upright, and offered a safe retreat from the storm. The bed of leaves was soft and comfortable. She sat there peering out at the darkening heavens.

All beneath her, southward and westward was gray twilight. The settlement faded from sight; the river grew wan and shadowy. The ruddy light in the west was fast succumbing to the rolling clouds. Darker and darker it became, until only one break in the overspreading vapors admitted the last crimson gleam of sunshine over hills and valley, brightening the river until it resembled a stream of fire. Then the light failed, the glow faded. The intense blackness of night prevailed.

Out of the ebon west came presently another flare of light, a quick, spreading flush, like a flicker from a monster candle; it was followed by a long, low, rumbling roll.

Helen felt in those intervals of unutterably vast silence, that she must shriek aloud. The thunder was a friend. She prayed for the storm to break. She had withstood danger and toilsome effort with fortitude; but could not brave this awful, boding, wilderness stillness.

Flashes of lightning now revealed the rolling, pushing, turbulent clouds, and peals of thunder sounded nearer and louder.

A long swelling moan, sad, low, like the uneasy sigh of the sea, breathed far in the west. It was the wind, the ominous warning of the storm. Sheets of light were now mingled with long, straggling ropes of fire, and the rumblings were often broken by louder, quicker detonations.

Then a period, longer than usual, of inky blackness succeeded the sharp flaring of light. A faint breeze ruffled the leaves of the thicket, and fanned Helen’s hot cheek. The moan of the wind became more distinct, then louder, and in another instant like the far-off roar of a rushing river. The storm was upon her. Helen shrank closer against the stone, and pulled her jacket tighter around her trembling form.

A sudden, intense, dazzling, blinding, white light enveloped her. The rocky promontory, the weird, giant chestnut tree, the open plateau, and beyond, the stormy heavens, were all luridly clear in the flash of lightning. She fancied it was possible to see a tall, dark figure emerging from the thicket. As the thunderclap rolled and pealed overhead, she strained her eyes into the blackness waiting for the next lightning flash.

It came with brilliant, dazing splendor. The whole plateau and thicket were as light as in the day. Close by the stone where she lay crept the tall, dark figure of an Indian. With starting eyes she saw the fringed clothing, the long, flying hair, and supple body peculiar to the savage. He was creeping upon her.

Helen’s blood ran cold; terror held her voiceless. She felt herself sinking slowly down upon the leaves.