Matters looked bad once more. Fortune was playing tricks, still. Matters looked worse in the council-house. The place was thronged with chiefs and warriors. There were a number of strange chiefs. Hands were shaken, but not the hand of Simon. He received only scowls. A war party of the Shawnees had been defeated on the border; the spirits of their slain required revenge. The stranger chiefs gazed upon Simon indignantly. Why had he not been killed before? The Shawnee nation were getting childish. Let him be executed. The councils had so voted. Who now wanted him to live? Simon Girty made another speech. He was hotly countered, by the stranger chiefs. They carried the day. He again turned to Simon Butler. "My friend, I think you must die. But I have persuaded them to burn you at Upper Sandusky, where there will be many more Indians than here, receiving their presents from the British. I will ride ahead and see what I can do for you." He left. Simon was immediately hustled out by the collar and arms, and led by a rope around his neck was marched afoot, guarded by horsemen, for the north. What a sudden change! First he had been beaten; then he had been painted black, for death. Then he had been released. Now he was to be killed. He had faint hope. It flickered when Girty passed him, and saying "I have friends in the next village," continued. It died completely when he arrived at the next village, and no Girty was there. His friend Simon had failed, and had gone back by another trail. By this time he himself was already in torture. On the way the march had been interrupted by an old Indian who was sitting on a log, smoking a pipe and watching his squaw chop wood. The sight of the roped prisoner enraged him. He had lost a son, by a white man's rifle. In a twinkling he had sprung up, grabbed the ax from the squaw, and at one blow had cut Simon's arm wellnigh off at the shoulder. The ax whirled high for a more deadly blow, but another Indian caught at it just in time. "Shame on you!" he scolded. "You act like a fool. This man is for the stake. Would you cheat us out of him, when the people ahead are expecting great pleasure?" Half dead from loss of blood, poor Simon arrived at the village. It was the town where the sullen Logan, once the firm friend of the whites, lived. Here he was eating his heart, with grief over the wrongs done to him.[1] Chief Logan the Mingo walked over to Simon, and surveyed him. Simon did not know who he was; he may have heard of Simon. "Well, young man," he said, in good English, "these other young men seem very mad at you." "They certainly do," Simon admitted ruefully. The dark Logan slightly smiled. "Don't be discouraged. I am a great chief. You are to go to Sandusky. They talk of burning you there. But I will send two runners to speak good of you."