"Areotha will speak boldly, though that man may repeat her words among the Wyandot lodges, and the warriors on the trail. She is the pale faces' friend. If the bee does not love to gather honey from the flower: if the Manitou does not love his white and red children, then Areotha has decoyed the boats ashore! She has spoken, and since she built the first fire for old Madgitewa, her Indian mother, her tongue has not told a lie." Kate Merriweather looked up triumphant. She believed that Little Moccasin had told the truth, for candor was in her voice, and innocence in her soft eyes. "There is an antagonism between your statements," Oscar Parton said, addressing John Darknight. "They do not harmonize as I would like to see them do." "Just as if you expected to hear that cunning forest trollop----" "Please be sparing with your epithets, Mr. Darknight. Do not forget that you are in the presence of ladies," said the young man, interrupting. "Yes, sir," was the tart rejoinder, accompanied with a quick, angry glance at Kate. "Yes, sir! I will, for I am a gentleman; but I was saying that you seem to have expected a confirmation of my truthful charges from the accused herself. I know her but too well, and many a poor white man and his little family have tasted death in the Maumee through her treachery. But if you wish to test it, I shall not stand between. When John Darknight's words of warning can be brushed aside by the lies of a girl like that one, it is high time for him to betake himself away. You will repent soon enough. Trust the witch and get to Wayne, _if you can_!" With the last word still quivering his lips, the guide shouldered his heavy rifle and tightened his belt, as if bent on departure. "How do you know that we believe the girl?" asked the settler, who had not spoken for several minutes. "How do I know anything?" was the snappish answer. "Do you suppose that I am blind, and a dunce in the bargain? Warm the viper in your bosoms, and, as you deserve perhaps, let it sting you to death." Then the guide strode madly away, and reached the edge of the river bank before another word was uttered. The events of the last moment had thrown consternation into the little camp, and the guide's hot words, mien, and his desertion, seemed to paralyze the tongues of the fugitives. But Abel Merriweather, white as a sheet and with flashing eyes, called out in a tone that halted the guide on the top of the bank: "One more word, sir!" he said. "John Darknight, I ought to shoot you. Last night an Indian swam the Maumee and you met him at the water's edge. There you proved yourself a low-bred renegade, a traitor to your own people--the plotter of the destruction of my family. I ought to kill you where you stand!" The guide did not reply. For a moment he gazed at the speaker and heard the clicking of four rifle locks. Then he burst into a coarse, defiant laugh and sprang down the bank like a startled deer.