"Verily, then, thee makes me in a perplexity as before," said Nathan; "for as truly as thee stands before me, so truly did I see, that night when I left thee at the ruins, and crawled through the Injun lines, a white man that sat at a fire with Abel Doe, the father of the maid Telie, apart from the rest, and counselled with him how best to sack the cabin, without killing the two women. Truly, friend, it was a marvel to myself, there being so many of the murdering villains, that they did us so little mischief: but, truly, it was because of the women. And, truly, there was foul knavery between these two men; for I heard high words and chaffering between them, as concerning a price or reward which Abel Doe claimed of the other for the help he was rendering him, in snapping thee up, with thee kinswoman. Truly, thee must not think I was mistaken; for seeing the man's red shawl round his head gleaming in the fire, and not knowing there was any one nigh him (for Abel Doe lay flat upon the earth), a wicked thought came into my head; 'for, truly,' said I, 'this man is the chief, and, being alone, a man might strike him with a knife from behind the tree he rests against, and being killed, his people will fly in fear, without any more blood-shed;' but creeping nearer, I saw that he was but a white man in disguise; and so, having listened awhile, to hear what I could, and hearing what I have told thee, I crept away on my journey." The effect of this unexpected revelation upon the young Virginian was as if an adder had suddenly fastened upon his bosom. It woke a suspicion, involving indeed an improbability such as his better reason revolted at, but full of pain and terror. But wild and incredible as it seemed, it received a kind of confirmation from what Nathan added. "The rifle-guns, the beads, and the cloth," he said, "that were distributed after the battle,--does thee think they were plunder taken from the young Kentuckians they had vanquished? Friend, these things were a price with which the white man in the red shawl paid the assassin villains for taking thee prisoner,--thee and thee kinswoman. His hirelings were vagabonds of all the neighbouring tribes, Shawnees, Wyandots, Delawares, and Piankeshaws, as I noted well when I crept among them; and old Wenonga is the greatest vagabond of all, having long since been degraded by his tribe for bad luck, drunkenness, and other follies, natural to an Injun. My own idea is, that that white man thirsted for thee blood, having given thee up to the Piankeshaws, who, thee says, had lost one of their men in the battle; for which thee would certainly have been burned alive at their village: but what was his design in captivating thee poor kinswoman that thee calls Edith, truly I cannot divine, not knowing much of thee history."