Jim thanked the old riverman and left him.  He hardly knew which way to turn.  He would make one more effort.  He crossed the clearing to where the renegades’ teepee stood.  McKee and Elliott were sitting on a log.  Simon Girty stood beside them, his hard, keen, roving eyes on the scene.  The missionary was impressed by the white leader.  There was a difference in his aspect, a wilder look than the others wore, as if the man had suddenly awakened to the fury of his Indians.  Nevertheless the young man went straight toward him.

“Girty, I come—–­”

“Git out!  You meddlin’ preacher!” yelled the renegade, shaking his fist at Jim.

Simon Girty was drunk.

Jim turned from the white fiends.  He knew his life to them was not worth a pinch of powder.

“Lost!  Lost!  All lost!” he exclaimed in despair.

As he went toward the church he saw hundreds of savages bounding over the grass, brandishing weapons and whooping fiendishly.  They were concentrating around Girty’s teepee, where already a great throng had congregated.  Of all the Indians to be seen not one walked.  They leaped by Jim, and ran over the grass nimble as deer.

He saw the eager, fire in their dusky eyes, and the cruelly clenched teeth like those of wolves when they snarl.  He felt the hissing breath of many savages as they raced by him.  More than one whirled a tomahawk close to Jim’s head, and uttered horrible yells in his ear.  They were like tigers lusting for blood.

Jim hurried to the church.  Not an Indian was visible near the log structure.  Even the savage guards had gone.  He entered the open door to be instantly struck with reverence and awe.

The Christians were singing.

Miserable and full of sickening dread though Jim was, he could not but realize that the scene before him was one of extraordinary beauty and pathos.  The doomed Indians lifted up their voices in song.  Never had they sung so feelingly, so harmoniously.

When the song ended Zeisberger, who stood upon a platform, opened his Bible and read: 

“In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer.”

In a voice low and tremulous the venerable missionary began his sermon.

The shadow of death hovered over these Christian martyrs; it was reflected in their somber eyes, yet not one was sullen or sad.  The children who were too young to understand, but instinctively feeling the tragedy soon to be enacted there, cowered close to their mothers.

Zeisberger preached a touching and impressive, though short, sermon.  At its conclusion the whole congregation rose and surrounded the missionary.  The men shook his hands, the women kissed them, the children clung to his legs.  It was a wonderful manifestation of affection.

Suddenly Glickhican, the old Delaware chief, stepped on the platform, raised his hand and shouted one Indian word.