His mention of his sister revealed the deepest depth of his anguish. His parents were beyond all suffering and the need of pity. His sister, a year older than he, had been carried off. The pursuers found her clothing by a creek near the ruined cabin; but it had never been proved that she was dead. It was this, the uncertainty of her fate, which daily fed the boy's hate and drove him to the forest, where he sought to learn the truth and never relinquished an opportunity to take his revenge. "If Lige Runner done for him he sure did a good job," Cousin muttered. "He sure did make tomahawk improvements on him."[2] "You never kill in or near the settlements as some of them do," I said. His eyes closed and what should have been a rarely handsome boyish face, a face to stir the heart of any maiden to beating faster, was distorted with the pain he was keeping clamped down behind his clenched teeth. "That's only because o' what I seen at Keeney's Knob," he hoarsely whispered. "When I meet one of 'em in a settlement I skedaddle afore I lose my grip. I mustn't do anything that'll fetch a parcel of 'em down to carry off some other feller's little sister. If I know'd she was dead----" "If you'd stop killing long enough to question some of the Shawnees you might learn the truth." He shook his head slowly, and said: "I stopped--just afore the killin' at Baker's Bottom. Kept my Injun alive all night. But he wouldn't tell." I shuddered at the cold-bloodedness of him. "You tortured him and perhaps he knew nothing to tell," I said. "If he didn't know nothin' it was hard luck for him," he quietly agreed. "But I was sartain from things he had boasted that he was at the Knob that day. What you goin' to do with this varmint?" And he nodded toward the dead voyager. "My business won't allow me to take the time necessary to dig a grave where his friends can't find him or wild animals dig him out. We'll set him afloat again and hope he'll journey far down the river before his friends find him. He was friendly to us----" "Friendly----" interrupted the boy. "So was Cornstalk friendly!" I removed the journey-cake from the grinning mouth and placed the rigid figure in the bottom of the canoe. Before I could push the craft into the current young Cousin grunted with satisfaction and pointed to two bullet-holes, close together, just back of the ear. "Knew I must hit pretty close to where I was shootin'," he muttered as he made up the bank. I shoved the canoe from shore and called after him: "If you will wait until I get my horse we might travel together." He waved his hand in farewell and informed me: "I've got some business west o' here. It's out o' your path if you're makin' for the Greenbriar." "But a bit of gossip. I'm just back from Fort Pitt," I said. He halted and leaned on his rifle and stared at me with lack-luster eyes, and in a monotonous voice said: