For a moment she paused, but no signal or sound coming up from below, she went to work. Bracing herself against the jutting logs at the corner of the structure, her hands, by dint of toil, withdrew several of the wooden pins, which she thrust into her bosom, and a strip of bark was laid aside. Another and another noiselessly followed it, and then, like a cat, the girl dropped from the roof into the interior of the hut. The blackness of palpable darkness surrounded her, and in the lowest of whispers she whispered a name: “Mark Morgan!” A noise--no voice--guided her to the captive, and a moment later her knife noiselessly severed his bonds. “I thought you never were coming,” whispered the young spy; “but better late than never, you know, girl. The guards are dead? You found the door too well secured for your little hands, eh?” “The guards are as watchful as ever,” was the response. “We’ve stolen a march on them--Kenowatha and I.” Mark Morgan could scarcely repress an exclamation of astonishment at the daring feat. “Come!” whispered the Girl Avenger, “our work is but half-done. You are not free yet. Go up first; I’ll follow.” In silence Morgan groped his way to the corner, and clambered toward the opening in the rock. While he was performing this action, Nanette crept back to the post, upon whose worn surface she hastily cut her dreaded crescent which she reddened with her own blood, drawn with the point of her knife. “They will know who’s been here when they open the door,” she murmured, as she completed her work. “In my native country--La Belle France--visiting people leave their card, and this is mine. They’ve seen it before,” she added, with an inaudible chuckle, “for I am a frequent, though not very welcome, visitor in these parts.” The rescued spy reached the ground in safety; but as Nanette was about to descend, a signal of danger came up from Kenowatha. She paused on the roof, and awaited developments. Vainly she tried to pierce the gloom, as she listened attentively. Suddenly, just the slightest noise floated up to her, and then followed Kenowatha’s signal for her to recommence her descent. The danger was passed. A moment later, she stood on _terra firma_, and Kenowatha grasped her hand. “Stoop!” he whispered in her ear, while he drew the little stained hand nearer the earth. She obeyed. Lower and lower the boy thrust her hand, until it touched a man’s face, still warm, and covered with what she well knew to be blood. Kenowatha allowed the girl’s hand to rest on the dead face for a moment: then he took her finger and ran it through two deep gashes on the bloody forehead, which formed his red mark--the cross. “He came from the lodges, no doubt, to assassinate our spy,” whispered Kenowatha, proud of his work. “But his work is ended. They who wear my cross never admire it. Let us go; the guards may scent their brother’s gore.”