The sun was just gilding the horizon when they rode out of the woods into a wide plain.  No living thing could be seen.  Along the edge of the forest the ground was level, and the horse traveled easily.  Several times during the morning Joe dismounted beside a pile of stones or a fallen tree.  The miles were traversed without serious inconvenience to the invalid, except that he grew tired.  Toward the middle of the afternoon, when they had ridden perhaps twenty-five miles, they crossed a swift, narrow brook.  The water was a beautiful clear brown.  Joe made note of this, as it was an unusual circumstance.  Nearly all the streams, when not flooded, were green in color.  He remembered that during his wanderings with Wetzel they had found one stream of this brown, copper-colored water.  The lad knew he must take a roundabout way to the village so that he might avoid Indian runners or scouts, and he hoped this stream would prove to be the one he had once camped upon.

As they were riding toward a gentle swell or knoll covered with trees and shrubbery, Whispering Winds felt something warm on her hand, and, looking, was horrified to find it covered with blood.  Joe’s wound had opened.  She told him they must dismount here, and remain until he was stronger.  The invalid himself thought this conclusion was wise.  They would be practically safe now, since they must be out of the Indian path, and many miles from the encampment.  Accordingly he got off the horse, and sat down on a log, while Whispering Winds searched for a suitable place in which to erect a temporary shelter.

Joe’s wandering gaze was arrested by a tree with a huge knotty formation near the ground.  It was like many trees, but this peculiarity was not what struck Joe.  He had seen it before.  He never forgot anything in the woods that once attracted his attention.  He looked around on all sides.  Just behind him was an opening in the clump of trees.  Within this was a perpendicular stone covered with moss and lichens; above it a beech tree spread long, graceful branches.  He thrilled with the remembrance these familiar marks brought.  This was Beautiful Spring, the place where Wetzel rescued Nell, where he had killed the Indians in that night attack he would never forget.

Chapter XIX.

One evening a week or more after the disappearance of Jim and the girls, George Young and David Edwards, the missionaries, sat on the cabin steps, gazing disconsolately upon the forest scenery.  Hard as had been the ten years of their labor among the Indians, nothing had shaken them as the loss of their young friends.

“Dave, I tell you your theory about seeing them again is absurd,” asserted George.  “I’ll never forget that wretch, Girty, as he spoke to Nell.  Why, she just wilted like a flower blasted by fire.  I can’t understand why he let me go, and kept Jim, unless the Shawnee had something to do with it.  I never wished until now that I was a hunter.  I’d go after Girty.  You’ve heard as well as I of his many atrocities.  I’d rather have seen Kate and Nell dead than have them fall into his power.  I’d rather have killed them myself!”