But help reached him at the eleventh hour. The boat was checked in its course, and he heard voices above the dead arms that, like great cords of steel, held him down. He groaned to tell some one, he knew not who, that he still lived, and then he felt the Indian's arms torn apart. He was saved. With an ejaculation of joy at his deliverance the young settler looked up, to start with a cry of amazement. For the canoe that lay against his own contained a brace of Indians, plumed and painted for the warpath! From the clutches of the dead into those of the living did not seem to Oscar Parton, at that hour, a change for the better. He could not resist, for his rifle lay on the river bank, and before he could collect his ideas he was lifted from his boat into that of his captors'. CHAPTER X. LITTLE MOCCASIN'S "FATHER." Leaving Kate Merriweather in the hands of her as yet, to the reader, unknown abductor, and Oscar Parton a captive in the warriors' canoe, let us return to two characters of whom, for a while, we have lost sight. Deep in the forest that extended to the northern bank of the Maumee, and with but few trees felled about it, stood in the year '94 and for several years afterwards, a small cabin erected after the manner of western buildings, with logs dovetailed, strong oaken doors and heavy clapboard roof. So thickly stood the trees around it, that the keen-eyed hunter could not have perceived it at any noticeable distance. No little patch of Indian corn grew near to indicate the home of a settler, and no honeysuckles shaded the low-browed door to tell that a woman's gentle hand and loving taste had guided them heavenward. It really looked like the lair of a beast, for there were cleanly-picked bones before the door, beside which a fresh wolf skin had been nailed. It was not the home of refinement; but he who often slept beneath its roof and called it his, could sway hearts and drench the land in blood. It stood scarce ten miles from the scene of Kate Merriweather's abduction, a cabin memorable in the annals of the Northwestern Territory, for beyond its threshold the darkest treacheries of the times had been plotted. About the hour when the fugitives beside the river discovered that one of their number had been taken from their midst, a man emerged from the forest, and stepping quickly across the space from door to tree, entered the cabin. He did not have to stoop, as a tall person would have been compelled to do upon entering, for he was short in stature, but with a physique that denoted great strength. He was clad in the garb of a backwoodsman, and carried all the weapons borne by such a character. His face, almost brutish in anatomy, denoted the glutton, and his first step was to the larder, from which he drew an enormous chunk of meat upon which he fell with great voracity.