that Little Moccasin has seen him.”

“Seen whom?”

“Don’t you know—the young white spy who tracks the red men for the Blacksnake?” the girl said with surprise.

“No.”

Little Moccasin was nonplussed.

“Me see him,” she said at length, and her deep eyes brightened. “Him and the tall hunter come by and by, maybe.”

“Assistance, eh?” said Parton, catching the import of her words. “Well, we shall not reject it. You don’t hate the whites, then?”

“Little Moccasin their friend.”

“But you are not an Indian. Your skin is like mine.”

“Been Indian long time, though,” the girl said with a smile. “Have Indian mother—the old Madgitwa—in the big Indian village.”

“Don’t you know where you were born, Areotha?” questioned Parton.

The girl shook her head.

“Come up to the camp. I believe that you are true to our people. We have a girl up there who will like you.”

“Little Moccasin like her already,” was the artless answer.

Having made her canoe fast to the bank by a rope of twisted sinews, the mysterious girl followed Oscar Parton up the slope. He led her straight to the encampment, where her unexpected appearance created much excitement, and she was immediately surrounded.

Abel Merriweather was the first to question her, and Areotha was about to reply when she caught sight of John Darknight, the guide.

The next moment every vestige of color fled from her face, and, staring at the guide, she started back.

She looked like a person who had suddenly been confronted by a spectre.

At that moment John Darknight’s face assumed a bold, defiant and threatening aspect; but it was as white as Areotha’s.

CHAPTER V.

A BRACE OF DESERTIONS.

With one accord the fugitives glanced from Little Moccasin to the guide. They felt that the twain had met before, and that the present encounter was unexpected and startling to each.

“What do you know about this girl?” said the settler to Darknight. “It seems to me that this is not your first encounter with her.”

“I should say that it wasn’t,” was the reply. “I had hoped that we would reach our destination without meeting her, for her presence among white emigrants or fugitives betokens danger. She is the witch of the northwest territory, and many is the boat that she has decoyed ashore to the rifle and the tomahawk. She doubtless recognized me, for I once pitched her into the rapids of yon river, and if she had her deserts now our rifles would rid the territory of its witch, though I know it is hard to kill a woman.”

“Abel, she must not stay here if she is to betray us to death,” said the settler’s wife, fast upon the guide’s last words.

“Not so fast, mother,” interrupted Kate Merriweather, with sympathy in her dark eyes for the lone girl. “Remember that we have listened to but one side of the story—Mr. Darknight’s; now let us hear what she has to say in her defense.”

“Oh, she’s a cute one, and you’ll hear the sleekest story ever told in these parts,” the guide said.

But Kate Merriweather did not appear to have heard him.

“You have listened to the white man,” she said to Areotha. “He has not given you an enviable reputation. Now we want to hear what you have to say for yourself.”

Reassured by the white girl’s kindly voice and looks, the accused maiden stepped boldly forward, and said in a tone trembling but sweet:

“The pale guide does not like to see Areotha here, for she knows him. He is more Wyandot than white man, and where is the boat he ever guided that has not bloody planks? Areotha does not know. Did he not tell the white man in his cabin that the red men would surround it and scalp his family, and then right away offer to guide him to the Blacksnake?”

Abel Merriweather started violently. How did the forest girl know that John Darknight had done this?

“This is insulting, and from a characterless girl at that!” the guide exclaimed, advancing a step.

“Hear her through,” said Kate firmly. “You have had your say; she shall have hers. Now,” to Areotha, “tell us if you are the witch he calls you—tell us if you have ever decoyed the boats of our people to an ambush.”

“Areotha will speak boldly, though that man may repeat her words among the Wyandot lodges, and the warriors on the trail. She is the pale faces’ friend. If the bee does not love to gather honey from the flower: if the Manitou does not love his white and red children, then Areotha has decoyed the boats ashore! She has spoken, and since she built the first fire for old Madgitewa, her Indian mother, her tongue has not told a lie.”

Kate Merriweather looked up triumphant. She believed that Little Moccasin had told the truth, for candor was in her voice, and innocence in her soft eyes.

“There is an antagonism between your statements,” Oscar Parton said, addressing John Darknight. “They do not harmonize as I would like to see them do.”

“Just as if you expected to hear that cunning forest trollop——”

“Please be sparing with your epithets, Mr. Darknight. Do not forget that you are in the presence of ladies,” said the young man, interrupting.

“Yes, sir,” was the tart rejoinder, accompanied with a quick, angry glance at Kate. “Yes, sir! I will, for I am a gentleman; but I was saying that you seem to have expected a confirmation of my truthful charges from the accused herself. I know her but too well, and many a poor white man and his little family have tasted death in the Maumee through her treachery. But if you wish to test it, I shall not stand between. When John Darknight’s words of warning can be brushed aside by the lies of a girl like that one, it is high time for him to betake himself away. You will repent soon enough. Trust the witch and get to Wayne, if you can!”

With the last word still quivering his lips, the guide shouldered his heavy rifle and tightened his belt, as if bent on departure.

“How do you know that we believe the girl?” asked the settler, who had not spoken for several minutes.

“How do I know anything?” was the snappish answer. “Do you suppose that I am blind, and a dunce in the bargain? Warm the viper in your bosoms, and, as you deserve perhaps, let it sting you to death.”

Then the guide strode madly away, and reached the edge of the river bank before another word was uttered.

The events of the last moment had thrown consternation into the little camp, and the guide’s hot words, mien, and his desertion, seemed to paralyze the tongues of the fugitives.

But Abel Merriweather, white as a sheet and with flashing eyes, called out in a tone that halted the guide on the top of the bank:

“One more word, sir!” he said. “John Darknight, I ought to shoot you. Last night an Indian swam the Maumee and you met him at the water’s edge. There you proved yourself a low-bred renegade, a traitor to your own people—the plotter of the destruction of my family. I ought to kill you where you stand!”

The guide did not reply. For a moment he gazed at the speaker and heard the clicking of four rifle locks. Then he burst into a coarse, defiant laugh and sprang down the bank like a startled deer.

A few bounds brought him to the river, into which he plunged without a second’s hesitation, and dived beneath the surface.

Abel Merriweather and his friends, with ready rifles, waited vengefully for his reappearance; but he came up far below and dived again before a single weapon could cover him.

The whites looked disappointedly at each other.

“I ought to have dealt with him last night,” the settler said, self-upbraidingly. “He will join the Indians, and deal