The latter did not delay. He said no word, but he raised his tomahawk and swept it around the camp toward the sleeping men. A voiceless question glittered in his eyes. For a single moment Alagwa’s heart stopped short; then it raced furiously, beating with great throbs that shook her slender frame and that to her strained consciousness seemed to echo drum-like through the sleeping camp. Now was the chance for which she had longed. By a single blow she might avenge Wilwiloway, might win the wagon-load of ammunition for her people, and might weaken the ruthless enemy whom she so hated. Now! Now! Now! Her brain thrilled with the summons. Abruptly the glow faded. She could not, could not, give the word to kill. Not for all the ammunition in the land, not for the lives of all the Shawnee braves that lived, not for victory that would endure forever, could she give the word that would bring about the deaths of sleeping men. Desperately she shook her head and raised her hand, imperatively pointing to the forest. The runner hesitated. Again, with mute insistence, he renewed his deadly question, and again Alagwa said him nay. At last, with a shrug of his naked shoulders, he dropped his arm. An instant more and the night had swallowed him up. Alagwa dropped back gasping. Now that the chance was gone she longed for its return. A blaze of hate shook her--hate for the white men and for herself. She was a traitor, a coward, a weakling, she told herself fiercely. She had broken faith with Tecumseh. She had failed in her duty to her people. The white blood she had inherited had betrayed her. Oh! If she could drain it from her veins and be red, all red. Despairingly she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook. An hour slipped by and still dry sobs racked her slender body. Suddenly, a sound from near the great leaning tree reached her ears and she straightened up, staring into the faint light of the coming dawn. The sleeper beneath it had shifted his position. As she watched he sat up, cocking his head, evidently listening to the heavy breathing of the negro. Then he began to crawl noiselessly toward the wagon. Alagwa drew her breath sharply. She knew the man was Williams and she knew why he was coming. She knew that the heavy rifle that Jack had taken from him was in the wagon and that he was trying to regain it. When he did regain it, what would he do? Would he not turn upon the young chief, who was taking him to be punished for the murder of Wilwiloway, and who had saved and befriended her. She could not doubt it.