"
Chapter XXII.
Simon Girty lolled on a blanket in Half King's teepee. He was alone,
awaiting his allies. Rings of white smoke curled lazily from his
lips as he puffed on a long Indian pipe, and gazed out over the
clearing that contained the Village of Peace.
Still water has something in its placid surface significant of deep
channels, of hidden depths; the dim outline of the forest is dark
with meaning, suggestive of its wild internal character. So Simon
Girty's hard, bronzed face betrayed the man. His degenerate
brother's features were revolting; but his own were striking, and
fell short of being handsome only because of their craggy hardness.
Years of revolt, of bitterness, of consciousness of wasted life, had
graven their stern lines on that copper, masklike face. Yet despite
the cruelty there, the forbidding shade on it, as if a reflection
from a dark soul, it was not wholly a bad countenance. Traces still
lingered, faintly, of a man in whom kindlier feelings had once
predominated.
In a moment of pique Girty had deserted his military post at Fort
Pitt, and become an outlaw of his own volition. Previous to that
time he had been an able soldier, and a good fellow. When he
realized that his step was irrevocable, that even his best friends
condemned him, he plunged, with anger and despair in his heart, into
a war upon his own race.
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