"Nell, dearest, you are safe. What was it? What frightened you so?"
said Kate, tenderly.
"Oh, it was fearful!" gasped Nell, sitting up. She clung to her
sister with one hand, while the other grasped Jim's sleeve.
"I was looking out into the dark, when suddenly I beheld a face, a
terrible face!" cried Nell. Those who watched her marveled at the
shrinking, awful fear in her eyes. "It was right by the window. I
could have touched it. Such a greedy, wolfish face, with a long,
hooked nose! The eyes, oh! the eyes! I'll never forget them. They
made me sick; they paralyzed me. It wasn't an Indian's face. It
belonged to that white man, that awful white man! I never saw him
before; but I knew him."
"Girty!" said Heckewelder, who had come in with his quiet step. "He
looked in at the window. Calm yourself, Nellie. The renegade has
gone."
The incident worried them all at the time, and made Nell nervous for
several days; but as Girty had disappeared, and nothing more was
heard of him, gradually they forgot. Kate's wedding day dawned with
all the little party well and happy. Early in the afternoon Jim and
Nell, accompanied by Kate and her lover, started out into the woods
just beyond the clearing for the purpose of gathering wild flowers
to decorate the cabin.
"We are both thinking of--him," Jim said, after he and Nell had
walked some little way in silence.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166