He started down the ridge, and had not gone a hundred paces when over some gray boulders he saw the thatched roof of a hut.  So wild and secluded was the spot, that he would never have discovered the cabin from any other point than this, which he had been so fortunate as to find.

His study and practice under Wetzel now stood him in good stead.  He picked out the best path over the rough stones and through the brambles, always keeping under cover.  He stepped as carefully as if the hunter was behind him.  Soon he reached level ground.  A dense laurel thicket hid the cabin, but he knew the direction in which it lay.  Throwing himself flat on the ground, he wormed his way through the thicket, carefully, yet swiftly, because he knew there was no time to lose.  Finally the rear of the cabin stood in front of him.

It was made of logs, rudely hewn, and as rudely thrown together.  In several places clay had fallen from chinks between the timbers, leaving small holes.  Like a snake Joe slipped close to the hut.  Raising his head he looked through one of the cracks.

Instantly he shrank back into the grass, shivering with horror.  He almost choked in his attempt to prevent an outcry.

Chapter XVIII.

The sight which Joe had seen horrified him, for several moments, into helpless inaction.  He lay breathing heavily, impotent, in an awful rage.  As he remained there stunned by the shock, he gazed up through the open space in the leaves, trying to still his fury, to realize the situation, to make no hasty move.  The soft blue of the sky, the fleecy clouds drifting eastward, the fluttering leaves and the twittering birds—­all assured him he was wide awake.  He had found Girty’s den where so many white women had been hidden, to see friends and home no more.  He had seen the renegade sleeping, calmly sleeping like any other man.  How could the wretch sleep!  He had seen Kate.  It had been the sight of her that had paralyzed him.  To make a certainty of his fears, he again raised himself to peep into the hole.  As he did so a faint cry came from within.

Girty lay on a buffalo robe near a barred door.  Beyond him sat Kate, huddled in one corner of the cabin.  A long buckskin thong was knotted round her waist, and tied to a log.  Her hair was matted and tangled, and on her face and arms were many discolored bruises.  Worse still, in her plaintive moaning, in the meaningless movement of her head, in her vacant expression, was proof that her mind had gone.  She was mad.  Even as an agonizing pity came over Joe, to be followed by the surging fire of rage, blazing up in his breast, he could not but thank God that she was mad!  It was merciful that Kate was no longer conscious of her suffering.

Like leaves in a storm wavered Joe’s hands as he clenched them until the nails brought blood.  “Be calm, be cool,” whispered his monitor, Wetzel, ever with him in spirit.  But God!  Could he be cool?  Bounding with lion-spring he hurled his heavy frame against the door.