He could not
understand the absence of Whispering Winds. She would have died
sooner than desert him. Girty had, perhaps, captured her, and was
now scouring the woods for him.
"I'll get him next time, or he'll get me," muttered Joe, in bitter
wrath. He could never forgive himself for his failure to kill the
renegade.
The recollection of how nearly he had forever ended Girty's brutal
career brought before Joe's mind the scene of the fight. He saw
again Buzzard Jim's face, revolting, unlike anything human. There
stretched Silvertip's dark figure, lying still and stark, and there
was Kate's white form in its winding, crimson wreath of blood.
Hauntingly her face returned, sad, stern in its cold rigidity.
"Poor girl, better for her to be dead," he murmured. "Not long will
she be unavenged!"
His thoughts drifted to the future. He had no fear of starvation,
for Mose could catch a rabbit or woodchuck at any time. When the
strips of meat he had hidden in his coat were gone, he could start a
fire and roast more. What concerned him most was pursuit. His trail
from the cabin had been a bloody one, which would render it easily
followed. He dared not risk exertion until he had given his wound
time to heal. Then, if he did escape from Girty and the Delawares,
his future was not bright.
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