“Throw down the rifle, girl,” said the silvery voice that floated down to her, while the boat spun around among the rocks. The two figures began to descend. “Hasten!” cried Effie, laying the rifle aside, and glancing at the bloody face of her lover. “He’s not an Indian,” and she pointed to him as she looked up again. “The young She-wolf has stained her hands with the blood of a friend!” At this a cry escaped the lips of the foremost of the descending twain, and faster down the rocks came the beautiful Terror of the Maumee, and Kenowatha. CHAPTER VII. THE RED-SKIN’S OATH. Maddened beyond description, because his call was unanswered by his _protege_, Joe Girty turned to the Indians, and allowed a volley of oaths to escape his lips. Finding his red allies mute, or conversing with each other in unintelligible whispers, he stepped from Turkey-foot’s side to the little group of renegades consisting of his brother Simon, Capt. McKee, Elliott, and several others. “Joe, it’s as plain as day to me,” said Simon Girty. “Then out with it.” “The girl an’ Kenowatha, as you call your pale spawn, are together.” The next moment the white Ottawa had bounded into the cabin, tenanted by the dead. Turkey-foot followed him. The torches of the twain revealed the ghastly sight again, and Girty suddenly turned to the chief. “Simon must have told the truth,” he said; “the white spawn’s gun is gone.” “And he is with the young She-wolf,” hissed Turkey-foot. “Now shall he become the red-man’s enemy. The white Ottawa will help us hunt him?” “Yes, yes,” cried Joe Girty, grasping the outstretched hand of the chief; but a moment later his cheek blanched to an icy pallor, in the glare of the torches. He thought of the deadly bullets that sped from the She-wolf’s rifle. Turkey-foot divined the meaning of the renegade’s terror. “Men who fear squaws should wear long hair and tear their sinews from their arms,” hissed the Indian, in a tone of cutting derision. “To-morrow night a league that shall hunt Kenowatha and the She-wolf to the cold waters of the dark river, forms in Turkey-foot’s lodge. Turkey-foot had a boy once--a gracious son; but the mark of the She-wolf’s teeth is on his skull. Until this moment, warriors have refused to take the oath a childless father would impose upon them. Now the time has come. Turkey-foot met the young chiefs last night. Leather-lips, Wacomet, Segastaro, and others yearn for the red oath. Ah, the Manitou’s cheeks will become as white as my brother’s, when the red-man’s words enter his soul. If the white Ottawa can chase the snow from his cheeks, let him enter Turkey-foot’s wigwam when another sleep shuts the eyes of the women.”