"I don't know's I've any enemies, except these round here," replied the other, feebly, "and I'd like to die at peace with all the world; but what you ax, Simon Girty, I can't grant; it's agin my nater and conscience; I can't say I forgive ye, for what you've done, for I don't. I may be wrong--it may not be Christian like--but ef it's a sin, it's one I've got to answer for myself. No, Girty, I can't forgive--pre'aps God will--you must look to him: I can't. Girty, I can't; and so, farewell forever! God be merciful to me a sinner," he added, looking upward devoutly; "and ef I've done wrong, oh! pardon me, for Christ's sake!" With these words, the lips of Younker were sealed forever. Girty stood and gazed upon him in silence, for a few minutes, as one whose mind is ill at ease, and then walked slowly away, in a mood of deep abstraction. Younker continued alive some three-quarters of an hour longer--bearing his tortures with great fortitude--and then sunk down with a groan and expired. The Indians then proceeded to scalp him; after which they gradually dispersed, with the apparent satisfaction of wolves that have gorged their fill on some sheep-fold. When Algernon's guards returned, they found him in a swooning state, as previously recorded; and fearful that his life might be lost, and another day's sport thus spoiled, they immediately called in their great medicine man, who at once set about bandaging his wound, and applying to it such healing remedies as were known by him to be speedily efficacious, and for which the Indians are proverbially remarkable. His bruises were also rubbed with a soothing liquid; and by noon of the day following, he had gained sufficient strength to start upon his journey, accompanied by his guards. On that journey we shall now leave him, and turn to other, and more important events; merely remarking, by the way, lest the reader should consider the neglect an oversight, that, on entering the Piqua village, Oshasqua had taken care to render the life of little Rosetta Millbanks safe, and had secured to her as much comfort as circumstances would permit. [Footnote 14: In the action at Piqua here referred to, Simon Girty commanded three hundred Mingoes, whom he withdrew on account of the desperation with which the whites fought.]