The night was not far advanced when Kenowatha and the Girl Avenger reached the vicinity of the Indian village, and concealed themselves in the tall weeds that flourished there on the banks of the Maumee. Beside the flambeaus, they had borne disguises down from the cave, which they now proceeded to don. Kenowatha had laid aside the gray fox-tails that had formed a portion of his fantastic head-dress, divested himself of all the characteristic ornaments that were wont to distinguish him as the renegade’s young _protege_, and disguised himself as a common Indian boy--one of the many little red vagabonds that run about the Indian villages deep in mischief, long after their staider parents had yielded to the wooings of the somnolent god. He realized the peril attached to the expedition he had undertaken, he knew that a decree of outlawry had been passed against him, that the common warrior who took his scalp should forthwith be promoted to a full chief, and lead three hundred braves against the Black Snake, who at that hour was marching from Defiance to Victory. Never before had he inaugurated action so perilous as the present one, and it seemed the pinnacle of rashness for two children--for in stature and years the avengers might be styled thus--to attempt to rescue a white spy from the midst of a tribe that could muster five thousand warriors. The young twain felt no fear, and prepared for work as calmly as though getting ready for a great festival. They resolved before entering the woods to submit to no captivity. “Better,” said Nanette, “to fall striking dead those who spared not our own parents, than to undergo the terrible tortures inflicted by the Indians and their scarlet queen.” “Ay, ay,” returned Kenowatha, “we will not fall into their hands alive. If they get us at all, it will be bereft of life. But they will not capture us, girl. As yet I have not struck a single blow of vengeance. I am not to die thus, no! no! It is decreed by high Heaven that my chosen mark--the red cross--shall become as terrible as your bloody crescent.” When the twain rejoined each other in the woods--for they had separated to don their disguises--a silent pressure of hands, followed, accompanied by a look that told how inseparably their fates were linked together, by the strangest circumstances that ever existed in the untraveled forest wilds.