Then Brito came forward, jauntily. He glanced at Jack, and triumph shone in his eyes. “Great is Tecumseh’s justice,” he said. “Confidently I appeal to it.” Not a muscle in the chief’s face changed. “Let the servant of the white king speak,” he directed, calmly. Brito’s eyes grew steely. “The hour that Tecumseh fixed has passed,” he said. “I came back to receive his word. I find with him an American dog, dressed in the coat of the King’s soldiers. Either he comes as a spy, whose life is forfeit, or he comes to offer Tecumseh the price of treachery, to buy him to desert the King and join the Americans. Which is it? If he comes as a spy I demand in the King’s name that Tecumseh surrender him to me to be dealt with as a spy. If he comes to buy Tecumseh let the red chief declare himself now.” Brito spoke boldly. Whatever his faults he was no coward. Unflinchingly he gazed into Tecumseh’s eyes. Jack’s heart sank. Every word that Brito said was true. By all the laws of war his life was forfeit. If the Englishman had not appeared Tecumseh might have spared him for Alagwa’s sake. But would he dare to spare him now and let himself rest under the imputation of treachery that Brito had hurled into his teeth? Jack doubted it greatly. But he strove to meet his enemy’s eyes composedly and not to betray the terror with which he waited. He had not long to wait. Deliberately the red chief ignored Brito’s accusation. Coolly he answered. “Captain Telfair asks justice,” he said, slowly. “He shall have it. But the American chief shall have it also. He came to Tecumseh’s camp to demand his wife. Tecumseh will not slay him or let him be slain. He has need of him. He will send him back to his own people with a message to the chief of the Seventeen Fires.” Hand in hand Jack and Alagwa waited. They spoke no words; they needed to speak none. They looked each other in the eyes and were content. Tecumseh went on slowly. “Tecumseh kept his word once to his dead friend,” he said. “He is under no pledge to give the Star maiden to the American chief again. But”--the chief paused: slowly his eyes traversed the startled group--“but he may take her himself if he dares and if he can. The Star maiden shall go now, at once, in the British chief’s wagon, to the rear. There she will wait.” The chieftain paused and pointed upward to the sun, which was just climbing above the tops of the trees. Then he faced Jack.