Meanwhile as Ferguson lay on his fevered bed, and the men at Queenston saw the smoke of St. Davids go up, Kawque going towards the Americans to scout, came across a trail which showed him that Vere in his hasty flight from St. Davids, had taken a wrong turning and gone into the deep bush. A moment Kawque thought, then went swiftly after Ned's enemy, until a mêleé of horse and foot marks, and broken underbrush told him a struggle had taken place in the woods. Vere had been captured, so much Kawque guessed, but his captors were not any Indians, the Mohawk knew, and yet he was sure the Americans had not advanced that far. Silently now as a snake, Kawque glided through the underbrush until he came to a hut, where men whom he recognized as Sell's gang, deserters from both armies, were standing round Vere, who with his hands tied behind him, was foaming with rage. Then a man in a ragged red coat--Sells himself--stepped forward, and laughed in his face--"I too was a gentleman once, until your damned grandfather had me flogged, at Kingston; I'd kill you now in revenge, only the Yankees are hotfoot after us--we did a bit of plundering among the Canucks--and the last man of us will be hanged if we can't give them the slip. See here, the Yankee leader is Eli Goode; we know his sister's at St. Davids, with a nigger woman, and two of us are going there disguised as Indians to get her, and then I guess her brother will sing another tune. It's up to you to tell us where she is." Vere had plenty of animal courage in the excitement of battle, but when he saw the preparations for his torture by the miscreants, his soul was afraid, yet he had enough English instinct to answer Sells bravely, with a curse, though the degenerate within him whispered, "Why suffer for a Yankee girl?" CHAPTER XII. How Bee was Abducted--and the End. A tornado of flame was sweeping over St. Davids, and women with their children stumbled through the burning, choking fog of smoke. Betty's little household were still standing helplessly together by the ruins of their cottage, when two men, in the war-paint of the Mohawks, leaped out of the smoke, seized Bee, and vanished with her in the fog. Chloe rushed after them screaming, while the other two women, cumbered with the babies they carried, could do nothing. Then more men, in Indian dress and paint, were round them, roughly demanding their names. They were gone too, in the smoke and confusion, as some Americans rode up, and Betty implored them to rescue Bee. "Madam," said their officer coldly, "our Indians are still the other side of the river. The Mohawk devils are in your pay, not ours. You had better look among the British lines for the girl."