After glancing into Eudora’s apartment, and finding her still asleep, he set to work cleaning his rifle. “I may need the gun,” he said in an undertone, “and now above all times it should be cleaned. Tecumseh says that weak lout is Alaska’s child. Who’d have thought that crazy hag would take such an outlandish notion? Her boy! So am I, then, and I know that I am old enough to be her father. Curse the weakling! If he hadn’t come into these parts, I’d ’a’ been enjoying myself with the girl--after the Indian fashion she would have been my wife. And then that crazy hag would not be against me. Oh! curse that boy!” As he uttered the imprecation, he dashed a fierce look toward Alaska’s lodge, plainly visible from his own. “If the lout would show himself now, I’d shoot him,” hissed Girty, “ay, and none could tell whence the shot came, for all save my guards still sleep. Why don’t he take an airing? I wish--Ha! have I no more than to wish?” As if intent upon the gratification of the renegade’s desires, Mayne Fairfax parted the curtains of Alaska’s lodge, and stepped beyond the threshold, where he paused to enjoy the beauties of the morning. “It’s your last airing, my boy,” hissed Girty, quickly throwing the different parts of his rifle into their proper places, while the fiendish light of revenge lit up his countenance with a lividness as horrible as unnatural. “I’ll forestall the mad squaws in a portion of their work!” Stepping aside, that he might not be perceived by his intended victim, Girty rammed a bullet home, and again returned to the curtain. Unsuspicious of danger, our young hero still stood before Alaska’s lodge. His keen eyes seemed to be employed in surveying the village, no doubt for future action. With a muttered oath the renegade drew his gun to his shoulder, and his eye glanced along the freshly-polished barrel. “Shall I take him atween the eyes or through the heart?” he asked, self-communingly. “I want to make a dead shot--I want to keep up my reputation as such, and if I fire at his heart I might fail. I can see his forehead; his accursed heart is hidden.” Then he elevated the gun just the least degree, and threw all his energies into the drawing of the “bead” upon Fairfax’s forehead. “Now--here--you--go!” muttered Girty, and his finger pressed the trigger. The last word still quivered his lips when something sprung past him, and the rifle was knocked from his grasp. “Hell and Furies!” yelled Girty, darting to his feet, and clutching the swan-like throat of the girl who fearlessly confronted him. “You’re a she-wolf, and, curse you, I’ve a mind to throttle you!” She could not speak, but her look was indicative of triumph over the brute. At length he released her, and, shorn of her strength by his vice-like grip, Eudora fell to the ground. “Back!” cried Girty to the guards, who were crowding into the lodge. “Warriors never desert their posts. I will attend to the girl. Back! I say.”