But Helen had seen the cause of all this excitement. At first glance she thought Metzar’s inn had been burned; but a second later it could be seen that the smoke came from a smoldering heap of rubbish in the road. The inn, nevertheless, had been wrecked. Windows stared with that vacantness peculiar to deserted houses. The doors were broken from their hinges. A pile of furniture, rude tables, chairs, beds, and other articles, were heaped beside the smoking rubbish. Scattered around lay barrels and kegs all with gaping sides and broken heads. Liquor had stained the road, where it had been soaked up by the thirsty dust.
Upon a shattered cellar-door lay a figure covered with a piece of rag carpet. When Helen’s quick eyes took in this last, she turned away in horror. That motionless form might be Brandt’s. Remorse and womanly sympathy surged over her, for bad as the man had shown himself, he had loved her.
She followed the borderman, trying to compose herself. As they neared Colonel Zane’s cabin she saw her father, Will, the colonel, Betty, Nell, Mrs. Zane, Silas Zane, and others whom she did not recognize. They were all looking at her. Helen’s throat swelled, and her eyes filled when she got near enough to see her father’s haggard, eager face. The others were grave. She wondered guiltily if she had done much wrong.
In another moment she was among them. Tears fell as her father extended his trembling hands to clasp her, and as she hid her burning face on his breast, he cried: “My dear, dear child!” Then Betty gave her a great hug, and Nell flew about them like a happy bird. Colonel Zane’s face was pale, and wore a clouded, stern expression. She smiled timidly at him through her tears. “Well! well! well!” he mused, while his gaze softened. That was all he said; but he took her hand and held it while he turned to Jonathan.
The borderman leaned on his long rifle, regarding him with expectant eyes.
“Well, Jack, you missed a little scrimmage this morning. Wetzel got in at daybreak. The storm and horses held him up on the other side of the river until daylight. He told me of your suspicions, with the additional news that he’d found a fresh Indian trail on the island just across from the inn. We went down not expecting to find any one awake; but Metzar was hurriedly packing some of his traps. Half a dozen men were there, having probably stayed all night. That little English cuss was one of them, and another, an ugly fellow, a stranger to us, but evidently a woodsman. Things looked bad. Metzar told a decidedly conflicting story. Wetzel and I went outside to talk over the situation, with the result that I ordered him to clean out the place.”
Here Colonel Zane paused to indulge in a grim, meaning laugh.
“Well, he cleaned out the place all right. The ugly stranger got rattlesnake-mad, and yanked out a big knife. Sam is hitching up the team now to haul what’s left of him up on the hillside. Metzar resisted arrest, and got badly hurt. He’s in the guardhouse. Case, who has been drunk for a week, got in Wetzel’s way and was kicked into the middle of next week. He’s been spitting blood for the last hour, but I guess he’s not much hurt. Brandt flew the coop last night. Wetzel found this hid in his room.”
Colonel Zane took a long, feathered arrow from where it lay on a bench, and held it out to Jonathan.
“The Shawnee signal! Wetzel had it right,” muttered the borderman.
“Exactly. Lew found where the arrow struck in the wall of Brandt’s room. It was shot from the island at the exact spot where Lew came to an end of the Indian’s trail in the water.”
“That Shawnee got away from us.”
“So Lew said. Well, he’s gone now. So is Brandt. We’re well rid of the gang, if only we never hear of them again.”
The borderman shook his head. During the colonel’s recital his face changed. The dark eyes had become deadly; the square jaw was shut, the lines of the cheek had grown tense, and over his usually expressive countenance had settled a chill, lowering shade.
“Lew thinks Brandt’s in with Bing Legget. Well, d— his black traitor heart! He’s a good man for the worst and strongest gang that ever tracked the border.”
The borderman was silent; but the furtive, restless shifting of his eyes over the river and island, hill and valley, spoke more plainly than words.
“You’re to take his trail at once,” added Colonel Zane. “I had Bess put you up some bread, meat and parched corn. No doubt you’ll have a long, hard tramp. Good luck.”
The borderman went into the cabin, presently emerging with a buckskin knapsack strapped to his shoulder. He set off eastward with a long, swinging stride.
The women had taken Helen within the house where, no doubt, they could discuss with greater freedom the events of the previous day.
“Sheppard,” said Colonel Zane, turning with a sparkle in his eyes. “Brandt was after Helen sure as a bad weed grows fast. And certain as death Jonathan and Wetzel will see him cold and quiet back in the woods. That’s a border saying, and it means a good deal. I never saw Wetzel so implacable, nor Jonathan so fatally cold but once, and that was when Miller, another traitor, much like Brandt, tried to make away with Betty. It would have chilled your blood to see Wetzel go at that fool this morning. Why did he want to pull a knife on the borderman? It was a sad sight. Well, these things are justifiable. We must protect ourselves, and above all our women. We’ve had bad men, and a bad man out here is something you cannot yet appreciate, come here and slip into the life of the settlement, because on the border you can never tell what a man is until he proves himself. There have been scores of criminals spread over the frontier, and some better men, like Simon Girty, who were driven to outlaw life. Simon must not be confounded with Jim Girty, absolutely the most fiendish desperado who ever lived. Why, even the Indians feared Jim so much that after his death his skeleton remained unmolested in the glade where he was killed. The place is believed to be haunted now, by all Indians and many white hunters, and I believe the bones stand there yet.”
“Stand?” asked Sheppard, deeply interested.
“Yes, it stands where Girty stood and died, upright against a tree, pinned, pinned there by a big knife.”
“Heavens, man! Who did it?” Sheppard cried in horror.
Again Colonel Zane’s laugh, almost metallic, broke grimly from his lips.
“Who? Why, Wetzel, of course. Lew hunted Jim Girty five long years. When he caught him—God! I’ll tell you some other time. Jonathan saw Wetzel handle Jim and his pal, Deering, as if they were mere boys. Well, as I said, the border has had, and still has, its bad men. Simon Girty took McKee and Elliott, the Tories, from Fort Pitt, when he deserted, and ten men besides. They’re all, except those who are dead, outlaws of the worst type. The other bad men drifted out here from Lord only knows where. They’re scattered all over. Simon Girty, since his crowning black deed, the massacre of the Christian Indians, is in hiding. Bing Legget now has the field. He’s a hard nut, a cunning woodsman, and capable leader who surrounds himself with only the most desperate Indians and renegades. Brandt is an agent of Legget’s and I’ll bet we’ll hear from him again.”
CHAPTER XIII
Jonathan traveled toward the east straight as a crow flies. Wetzel’s trail as he pursued Brandt had been left designedly plain. Branches of young maples had been broken by the borderman; they were glaring evidences of his passage. On open ground, or through swampy meadows he had contrived to leave other means to facilitate his comrade’s progress. Bits of sumach lay strewn along the way, every red, leafy branch a bright marker of the course; crimson maple leaves served their turn, and even long-bladed ferns were scattered at intervals.
Ten miles east of Fort Henry, at a point where two islands lay opposite each other, Wetzel had crossed the Ohio. Jonathan removed his clothing, and tying these, together with his knapsack, to the rifle, held them above the water while he swam the three narrow channels. He took up the trail again, finding here, as he expected, where Brandt had joined the waiting Shawnee chief. The borderman