because I wanted you to have the satisfaction.  Wal, the months have gone by, and Jim Girty’s still livin’ and carryin’ on.  Now he’s over there after them poor preachers.  I ain’t sayin’, Lew, that you haven’t more agin him than me, but I do say, let me in on it with you.  He always has a gang of redskins with him; he’s afraid to travel alone, else you’d had him long ago.  Two of us’ll have more chance to get him.  Let me go with you.  When it comes to a finish, I’ll stand aside while you give it to him.  I’d enjoy seein’ you cut him from shoulder to hip.  After he leaves the Village of Peace we’ll hit his trail, camp on it, and stick to it until it ends in his grave.”

The earnest voice of the backwoodsman ceased.  Both men rose and stood facing each other.  Zane’s bronzed face was hard and tense, expressive of an indomitable will; Wetzel’s was coldly dark, with fateful resolve, as if his decree of vengeance, once given, was as immutable as destiny.  The big, horny hands gripped in a viselike clasp born of fierce passion, but no word was spoken.

Far to the west somewhere, a befrilled and bedizened renegade pursued the wild tenor of his ways; perhaps, even now steeping his soul in more crime, or staining his hands a deeper red, but sleeping or waking, he dreamed not of this deadly compact that meant his doom.

The two hunters turned their stern faces toward the west, and passed silently down the ridge into the depths of the forest.  Darkness found them within rifle-shot of the Village of Peace.  With the dog creeping between them, they crawled to a position which would, in daylight, command a view of the clearing.  Then, while one stood guard, the other slept.

When morning dawned they shifted their position to the top of a low, fern-covered cliff, from which they could see every movement in the village.  All the morning they watched with that wonderful patience of men who knew how to wait.  The visiting savages were quiet, the missionaries moved about in and out of the shops and cabins; the Christian indians worked industriously in the fields, while the renegades lolled before a prominent teepee.

“This quiet looks bad,” whispered Jonathan to Wetzel.  No shouts were heard; not a hostile Indian was seen to move.

“They’ve come to a decision,” whispered Jonathan, and Wetzel answered him: 

“If they hev, the Christians don’t know it.”

An hour later the deep pealing of the church bell broke the silence.  The entire band of Christian Indians gathered near the large log structure, and then marched in orderly form toward the maple grove where the service was always held in pleasant weather.  This movement brought the Indians within several hundred yards of the cliff where Zane and Wetzel lay concealed.

“There’s Heckewelder walking with old man Wells,” whispered Jonathan.  “There’s Young and Edwards, and, yes, there’s the young missionary, brother of Joe.  ’Pears to me they’re foolish to hold service in the face of all those riled Injuns.”