She glided to the savage and leaned over him and said something. Then she was back to her brother, and the two disappeared into the woods. I drew a line on the savage and in Shawnee demanded: "Throw me the knife she gave you." Glaring at me sullenly, he flipped the knife toward the fire and resumed his attitude of abstraction. I had never killed an unarmed Indian. I had never shot one in cold blood. The office of executioner did not appeal, but repulsive as it was it would not do for the boy to kill his savage brother-in-law. Lost Sister and the savage were man and wife, even if married according to the Indian custom. Nor would it do for a woman of Virginia to be redeemed to civilization with a red husband roaming at large. No. The fellow must die, and I had the nasty work to do. The glade was thickening with shadows, but the sunlight still marked the top of an elm and made glorious the zenith. When the light died from the heavens I would assassinate the man. This would give him a scant hour, but a dozen or fifteen minutes of life could make small difference. Then again, once the dusk filled the glade my impassive victim would become alert and up to some of his devilish tricks. He did not change his position except as he turned his head to gaze fixedly at the western forest wall. One could imagine him to be ignorant of my presence. "Where does Black Hoof lead his warriors?" I asked him. Without deflecting his gaze he answered: "Back to their homes on the Scioto." "The white trader, the Pack-Horse-Man, spoke words that drive them back?" It was either a trick of the dying light, or else I detected an almost imperceptible twitching of the grim lips. After a short pause he said: "The Shawnees are not driven. They will pick up the end of the peace-belt. They will not drop it on the ground again. Tah-gah-jute (Logan) does not wish for war. He has taken ten scalps for every one taken from his people at Baker's house. He has covered the dead. The Pack-Horse-Man spoke wise words." "This white woman? You know she must go back to her people." Again the faint twitching of the lips. When he spoke it was to say: "She can go where she will or where she is made to go. If she is taken to the white settlements she will run away and go back to the Scioto. Her people are red. After the French War, after Pontiac's War, it was the same. White prisoners were returned to the white people. Many of them escaped and came back to us." His voice was calm and positive and my confidence in the girl's willingness to return to civilization was shaken. She had been as stolid as her red mate in my presence, but I had believed that nature would conquer her ten years' of savagery once she was alone with her brother.