“Wal, I’ll be durned if I ever expected to see a redskin work,” was his only comment on the industries.

“We are greatly alarmed by the presence of Girty and his followers,” said Edwards.  “We have been warned to leave, but have not been actually threatened.  What do you infer from the appearance here of these hostile savages?”

“It hardly ’pears to me they’ll bother you preachers.  They’re agin the Christian redskins, that’s plain.”

“Why have we been warned to go?”

“That’s natural, seein’ they’re agin the preachin’.”

“What will they do with the converted Indians?”

“Mighty onsartin.  They might let them go back to the tribes, but ’pears to me these good Injuns won’t go.  Another thing, Girty is afeered of the spread of Christianity.”

“Then you think our Christians will be made prisoners?”

“’Pears likely.”

“And you, also, think we’d do well to leave here.”

“I do, sartin.  We’re startin’ for Fort Henry soon.  You’d better come along with us.”

“Captain Williamson, we’re going to stick it out, Girty or no Girty.”

“You can’t do no good stayin’ here.  Pipe and Half King won’t stand for the singin’, prayin’ redskins, especially when they’ve got all these cattle and fields of grain.”

“Wetzel said the same.”

“Hev you seen Wetzel?”

“Yes; he rescued a girl from Jim Girty, and returned her to us.”

“That so?  I met Wetzel and Jack Zane back a few miles in the woods.  They’re layin’ for somebody, because when I asked them to come along they refused, sayin’ they had work as must be done.  They looked like it, too.  I never hern tell of Wetzel advisin’ any one before; but I’ll say if he told me to do a thing, by Gosh!  I’d do it.”

“As men, we might very well take the advice given us, but as preachers we must stay here to do all we can for these Christian Indians.  One thing more:  will you help us?”

“I reckon I’ll stay here to see the thing out,” answered Williamson.  Edwards made a mental note of the frontiersman’s evasive answer.

Jim had, meanwhile, made the acquaintance of a young minister, John Christy by name, who had lost his sweetheart in one of the Chippewa raids, and had accompanied the Williamson expedition in the hope he might rescue her.

“How long have you been out?” asked Jim.

“About four weeks now,” answered Christy.  “My betrothed was captured five weeks ago yesterday.  I joined Williamson’s band, which made up at Short Creek to take the trail of the flying Chippewas, in the hope I might find her.  But not a trace!  The expedition fell upon a band of redskins over on the Walhonding, and killed nearly all of them.  I learned from a wounded Indian that a renegade had made off with a white girl about a week previous.  Perhaps it was poor Lucy.”

Jim related the circumstances of his own capture by Jim Girty, the rescue of Nell, and Kate’s sad fate.