"F ORM one of our party?" I echoed, believing I must have misunderstood her words. "Surely, Mademoiselle, you cannot mean that you take your promise to the half-breed so seriously as voluntarily to remain in captivity?"  
"Yes, but I do, Monsieur!" and the tone in which she said it was firm with decision. "The Indian asked my pledge in all solemnity, and has gone away trusting to it. My conscience could never again be clear did I prove false in such a matter. You also made a pledge, even before mine was given; was it not your purpose to abide by it?"
 
"No," I answered, a bit shortly. "I merely agreed to his proposition at your expressed desire that I should, and because I believed you had framed some plan of escape. Have you such small respect for me, Mademoiselle, as to think I could consent to leave you ? 348 ? here alone and at the mercy of these red fiends? Have I risked my life in coming here for no other end than this?"
 
I felt her reach her arm across the pile of skins lying between us, and grasp my hand within her own.
 
"But, dear friend, you must!" she said, pleadingly, her softly modulated voice dwelling upon the words as if they came hard. "Truly you must, John Wayland, and for my sake as well as your own. I am comparatively safe here,—safe at least from actual physical harm, so long as the savages dream that the sparing of my life will yield them profit. You have no right to remain in such peril as surrounds you here, when by so doing you benefit no one. You have father and mother awaiting in prayer your safe return to them yonder on the Maumee; while I,—I have no one even to ask how sad my fate may be. Think you that because I am a girl I must therefore be all selfishness? or that I would ever permit you thus to sacrifice yourself unnecessarily for me? No, no, Monsieur! I will remain prisoner to Little Sauk, for my sacred word has been pledged; and you must go, because there are others to whom your life is of value. Nor need you go empty-handed, for the one you have sought so far and long seems now ready enough to travel eastward with you."
 
Scarcely had her voice ceased, leaving me struggling to find fit words to change her mad decision, ? 349 ? when a rough hand flung back the entrance flap, and the naked body of an Indian, framed for a single instant against the light, lurched heavily through the opening. Even that brief glimpse told me the man had been drinking to excess; while for the moment, as I huddled down closer behind my robes, I was unable to make out his identity.
 
"Where white woman?" he ejaculated gruffly, as he paused, blinded by the darkness. "Why she not come help me?"
 
His quick ear evidently caught the slight rustle of the girl's skirt as she rose hastily to her feet, for with a muttered Indian oath the savage lurched forward. I could scarcely make out the dimmest shadow of them in the dense gloom, yet I seemed to know that he had grasped her roughly, though not the slightest sound of fear or pain came from her lips.
 
"Ugh! better come!" he muttered, a veiled savage threat growling in his tone. "You my squaw; cook in my lodge; get meal now."
 
"But where? and how?" she asked, her voice trembling perceptibly, yet striving to placate him by a seeming willingness to obey. "I have nothing here to cook, nor have I fire."
 
"Indian squaw no talk back!" he retorted angrily. "This way I show white squaw to mind chief!"
 
I heard plainly the brutal blow he struck her, though even as she reeled back she managed to stifle ? 350 ? the scream upon her lips, so that it was barely audible. With one bound I was over the barrier of robes and clutching with tingling fingers for the brute. I touched his feathered head-dress at last, and he must have supposed me his helpless victim, for with a grunt of satisfaction he struck once again, the blow meeting my shoulder, where he judged in the dark her face would be.
 
"White squaw mind now—"
 
I had him gripped by the throat before he ended, and we went down together for a death-struggle in the darkness, from which each realized in an instant both could never rise again. My furious grip sobered him, and he made desperate efforts to break free, struggling vainly to utter some cry for rescue. Once I felt him groping at his waist for a knife; but I got first clasp upon its hilt, though I twisted helplessly for some minutes before I could loosen his hold at my wrist so as to strike him with the blade. His teeth closed upon my hand, biting deep into the flesh like a wild-cat, and the sharp sting of it yielded me the desperate strength I needed to wrench my hand free, and with one quick blow the knife I clutched cut deep into his side, so that I could feel the hot blood spurt forth over my hand. I held him in a death grip, for I knew a single cry meant ruin to all our plans, until the last breath sped, and I knew I lay prostrate above a corpse. It had been so swift and fierce a contest that ? 351 ? I staggered half-dazed to my feet, peering about me as if expecting another attack. I was steadied somewhat by the sound of a low sob from the darkness.
 
"'Tis well over with, Toinette," I murmured hastily, my voice trembling from the strain that still shook me.
 
"Oh, John! John Wayland! And you are truly unhurt of the struggle?" It was scarcely her voice speaking, so agitated was it. "Have you killed him?"
 
"Yes," I answered, finding my way cautiously toward her, and speaking in whispers. "I had no other choice. It was either his life or yours and mine. Knew you the savage?"
 
"It was Little Sauk," she replied, clinging to me, and growing somewhat calmer from my presence. "Oh, what can we do now?"
 
"There remains but one thing, and that is to accept the chance that Providence has given us. There remains no longer a shadow of excuse for your staying here, even by your own reasoning. You are no longer prisoner to Little Sauk. Your pledge has been dissolved by Fate, and it must be God's will that you go forth with me. What say you, Mademoiselle?" And I crushed her hands in mine.
 
I could feel her slight form tremble as I waited her reply, and believed she peered across my shoulder through the darkness, imagining she saw the dead Indian's form lying there.
 
? 352 ?
 
"Do you truly wish it?" she questioned at last, as though warring with herself. "Think you she would greatly care?"
 
'Tis a strangely perverse thing, the human mind. As there dimly dawned upon me a conception of her meaning,—a knowledge that this seemingly heart-free girl cared enough for me to exhibit such jealousy of another,—I would not undeceive her by a word of explanation.
 
"I certainly do wish it," was my grave answer, "nor does it greatly matter what the desire of any other may be. This is not an invitation to a ball, Mademoiselle. I beg you answer me; will you go?"
 
She looked toward me, wondering at my words.
 
"Yes," she said simply. "Has the time come?"
 
"I have no certain means of knowing; but it cannot be far from the hour, and we shall be much safer without."
 
I to............