The other missionaries had never seen the hunter though, of course, they were familiar with his name, and looked at him with great curiosity.  The hunter’s buckskin garments were wet, torn, and covered with burrs.  Dark spots, evidently blood stains, showed on his hunting-shirt.

“Wetzel?” interrogated Heckewelder.

The hunter nodded, and took a step behind the bush.  Bending over he lifted something from the ground.  It was a girl.  It was Nell!  She was very white—­but alive.  A faint, glad smile lighted up her features.

Not a word was spoken.  With an expression of tender compassion Mr. Wells received her into his arms.  The four missionaries turned fearful, questioning eyes upon the hunter, but they could not speak.

“She’s well, an’ unharmed,” said Wetzel, reading their thoughts, “only worn out.  I’ve carried her these ten miles.”

“God bless you, Wetzel!” exclaimed the old missionary.  “Nellie, Nellie, can you speak?”

“Uncle dear—­I’m—­all right,” came the faint answer.

“Kate?  What—­of her?” whispered George Young with lips as dry as corn husks.

“I did my best,” said the hunter with a simple dignity.  Nothing but the agonized appeal in the young man’s eyes could have made Wetzel speak of his achievement.

“Tell us,” broke in Heckewelder, seeing that fear had stricken George dumb.

“We trailed ’em an’ got away with the golden-haired lass.  The last I saw of Joe he was braced up agin a rock fightin’ like a wildcat.  I tried to cut Jim loose as I was goin’ by.  I s’pect the wust fer the brothers an’ the other lass.”

“Can we do nothing?” asked Mr. Wells.

“Nothin’!”

“Wetzel, has the capturing of James Downs any significance to you?” inquired Heckewelder.

“I reckon so.”

“What?”

“Pipe an’ his white-redskin allies are agin Christianity.”

“Do you think we are in danger?”

“I reckon so.”

“What do you advise?”

“Pack up a few of your traps, take the lass, an’ come with me.  I’ll see you back in Fort Henry.”

Heckewelder nervously walked up to the tree and back again.  Young and Edwards looked blankly at one another.  They both remembered Edward’s presentiment.  Mr. Wells uttered an angry exclamation.

“You ask us to fail in our duty?  No, never!  To go back to the white settlements and acknowledge we were afraid to continue teaching the Gospel to the Indians!  You can not understand Christianity if you advise that.  You have no religion.  You are a killer of Indians.”

A shadow that might have been one of pain flitted over the hunter’s face.

“No, I ain’t a Christian, an’ I am a killer of Injuns,” said Wetzel, and his deep voice had a strange tremor.  “I don’t know nothin’ much ‘cept the woods an’ fields, an’ if there’s a God fer me He’s out thar under the trees an’ grass.  Mr. Wells, you’re the first man as ever called me a coward, an’ I overlook it because of your callin’.  I advise you to go back to Fort Henry, because if you don’t go now the chances are aginst your ever goin’.  Christianity or no Christianity, such men as you hev no bisness in these woods.”