The woods had grown very still. The dead leaves rustled along the ground and the saplings murmured as they trembled in the caress of the vagrant breeze. But no man moved or spoke. Crouching upon the ground Alagwa waited, looking up at Tecumseh with beseeching eyes. Jack groaned as he watched the anguish that marred the exquisite oval of her face, stealing the color from her cheeks and leaving them pallid against the brown background of the woods. But he was very sure that Tecumseh was not acting without a cause, and he dared not speak lest he should spoil some well-laid plan. Slowly Tecumseh spoke. “Alagwa knew not the writing of the white man,” he said. “Lately she has learned it, but then she knew it not. How knows she that the man read with a true tongue? How knows she that he did not lie? Was he so great a friend of hers?” Alagwa sprang to her feet. Her hands tightened till the knuckles gleamed white in the morning light. “Friend!” she gasped. “He was no friend. He was an enemy. It was he who murdered Wilwiloway.” She paused; then--“Did--did he lie? Oh! God! Did he lie?” “Perhaps!” Tecumseh pointed to a place on his left. “Let my daughter sit beside me and hide her face in her blanket and keep silence till Tecumseh bids her speak.” Alagwa sat down. As she did so her eyes fell on the draped figure at the great chief’s right. From its folds two eyes gleamed at her, signalling a message of comfort and of love. Telepathy was far in the future--its very name was yet unborn--but the girl read the message and was comforted. Then she straightened up with a gasp. Williams, under guard, had come through the woods and stood before the great chief. Jack remembered that he had been missing since the massacre at the River Raisin. The man’s face was drawn and pale. Clearly, his captivity had not been light. Round him he glanced with quick, furtive eyes, seeking hope and finding none. Long Tecumseh stared him in the eyes. At last he stretched out his hand, holding a soiled and deeply creased letter. “This was taken from you when you were captured,” he said. “Read it aloud. And take care you read it true.” Williams’s eyes narrowed. Despite the chilliness of the dawn, beads of perspiration crept out upon his forehead. Furtively he looked around him, as if fearing to see some accuser. Then he took the letter and stared at it. “Read!” thundered the chieftain. “Read! And read true!” Williams moistened his dry lips. At last he spoke. “I don’t know how to read,” he mumbled. Jack leaned forward, every nerve tense. He did not need to be told that the letter was the one he had lost, the one from which Williams had read the words that had sent his bride of an hour fleeing into the night. Some disclosure was coming; he read it in the trader’s frightened eyes and in Tecumseh’s deadly mien. What would it be? His blood ran cold as he waited.