While hunting in Virginia he encountered Eudora Morriston, whose beauty fanned the fires of his evil nature; and, as Mayne Fairfax has already related, he swooped down upon the happy home, at the head of a band of Shawnees, massacred every one of its inmates, save the beautiful girl, whom he bore to the Indian village, and placed under the guardianship of two of the most pliant of his red tools. Bright and translucently beautiful upon the Shawnee village broke the morn that followed the transaction of the events related in the foregoing chapters. James, or as he was commonly called, Jim Girty, would have slumbered late, had he not been startled from his sleep by the grip of a human hand upon his arm. He opened his baleful eyes, and beheld a middle-aged savage bending over him. The first streaks of morning but illy dispersed the gloom of his lodge, and the renegade sprung to his feet, with the oath, never absent from his lips. “Alaska is a storm!” cried the Indian, springing from Girty’s side, and throwing aside the curtain of skins that served for a door. “See! she goes to the lodge of the Pale Flower. Her wolves will kill the guards, and tear to pieces the White Wolf’s prisoner. Last night the Lone Man shot Alaska’s gray wolf, and she will now have the blood of the white captive for it.” Astounded at the sight to which the savage directed his gaze--the Wolf-Queen, guarded by a dozen terrible wolves, and followed by near a hundred Indians, advancing toward the lodge where dwelt his prisoner, guarded by but ten braves--Jim Girty jerked his rifle from its pins over his couch, and bounded to the scene. He seemed to fly over the ground, and threw himself between Eudora’s guards, as the foremost wolves were preparing for the combat. “Back!” he yelled, fixing his gaze upon Alaska. “Why does Alaska seek the life of my prisoner?” “Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the madwoman, long and loud. “’Tis for the White Wolf to question, but for Alaska to answer. Last night Alaska met a young pale-faced hunter on the little stream. She pierced him with her shaft, but he was brave. He would use his rifle as a club. Alaska’s gray wolf--the only snow wolf of Alaska’s band--sought the hunter’s throat, when the Lone Man, concealed by many bushes, shot Lupino. Now lies he cold and dead in Alaska’s wigwam. She must have blood for his, and that blood must flow from the Pale Flower’s heart.” She finished, and stepped forward, while her grip tightened on the long-bladed knife that glittered in the first beams of the sun. Girty’s rifle shot to his shoulder. He did not dare shoot the Wolf-Queen, for she knew not the value of life, and her death at his hands would soon be followed by his, by the claws and fangs of her wolves. He directed his weapon at the head of her favorite wolf--a monster black fellow, around whose neck was a wide beaded collar, and over the shaggy back dropped a rich mantle.