Some one lighted a fire. Other fires sprang up until the glade was well illumined. Black Hoof sent some of the younger men to scout the creek so the camp might not be surprised by a sally. To the warriors remaining the chief announced: "We must march for the Ohio. Bad medicine has dogged us for many sleeps. I will make a feast to my medicine and will tell you what it says shall be done with the prisoners." "That man and that woman are my prisoners!" hoarsely cried Ward. "They were your prisoners while we believed your medicine was strong. Now that we know your medicine is weak and foolish they belong to all the Shawnees. Red Arrow's medicine is bad at heart. It told him to make a big gun. Four of my warriors are dead. Many are hurt. It will take blood to cover the bodies of the dead. Red Arrow has no prisoners until he goes and catches them." Ward pulled his ax and limped toward me. No warrior made an effort to stop him. But Black Hoof reminded: "When the Red Arrow is no longer a Shawnee he will be tied and left at the edge of the settlement. The prisoners are not to be harmed until my medicine directs." Ward halted. He was close enough for me to see that while he had escaped a wound from the flying stones his shoulder was blown full of powder. The sweat streamed down his face and intimated something of the agony he was suffering. "Black Hoof is a great warrior and a mighty chief!" he said huskily. "But Red Arrow's medicine is weak because it has not been fed. Only blood will make it strong. Let this man die before we break our camp." And he stirred me with his foot. "The prisoners belong to the Shawnees. My medicine may whisper to kill one of them, but the warriors in sound of my voice must decide. Those who would see one of the three die show the ax." Almost as soon as he had spoken the air was filled with spinning axes, ascending to the boughs and then falling to be deftly caught, each ax by its owner. "It is good," said the chief. "My medicine shall pick the prisoners to die." The explosion of the wooden cannon and the chief's ruling that we were no longer Ward's prisoners appealed to me as a reprieve. At least the girl was snatched from Ward's clutches. But the unanimous vote that one of us must die threw me back on the rack. It was inconceivable that Patricia Dale should thus die. And yet I had had an earnest of the devil's ferocity. East of the mountains I could not have imagined a hand ever being raised against her. And I had seen her buffeted and struck down this day. Therefore, I did comprehend the inconceivable. I called out to the chief: "Catahecassa, listen to a white medicine, for the red medicine is far away or else is asleep. If the white woman is harmed you will shed tears of blood before you reach your Scioto towns. The settlers are swarming in to head you off. You have no time to spend in torturing any prisoner.