“Why don’t some one kill him?” was Joe’s sharp question.

“Easier said than done, lad.  Jim Girty is a white traitor, but he’s a cunnin’ an’ fierce redskin in his ways an’ life.  He knows the woods as a crow does, an’ keeps outer sight ’cept when he’s least expected.  Then ag’in, he’s got Simon Girty, his brother, an’ almost the whole redskin tribe behind him.  Injuns stick close to a white man that has turned ag’inst his own people, an’ Jim Girty hain’t ever been ketched.  Howsumever, I heard last trip thet he’d been tryin’ some of his tricks round Fort Henry, an’ thet Wetzel is on his trail.  Wal, if it’s so thet Lew Wetzel is arter him, I wouldn’t give a pinch o’ powder fer the white-redskin’s chances of a long life.”

No one spoke, and Jeff, after knocking the ashes from his pipe, went down to the raft, returning shortly afterward with his blanket.  This he laid down and rolled himself in it.  Presently from under his coon-skin cap came the words: 

“Wal, I’ve turned in, an’ I advise ye all to do the same.”

All save Joe and Nell acted on Jeff’s suggestion.  For a long time the young couple sat close together on the bank, gazing at the moonlight on the river.

The night was perfect.  A cool wind fanned the dying embers of the fire and softly stirred the leaves.  Earlier in the evening a single frog had voiced his protest against the loneliness; but now his dismal croak was no longer heard.  A snipe, belated in his feeding, ran along the sandy shore uttering his tweet-tweet, and his little cry, breaking in so softly on the silence, seemed only to make more deeply felt the great vast stillness of the night.

Joe’s arm was around Nell.  She had demurred at first, but he gave no heed to her slight resistance, and finally her head rested against his shoulder.  There was no need of words.

Joe had a pleasurable sense of her nearness, and there was a delight in the fragrance of her hair as it waved against his cheek; but just then love was not uppermost in his mind.  All day he had been silent under the force of an emotion which he could not analyze.  Some power, some feeling in which the thought of Nell had no share, was drawing him with irresistible strength.  Nell had just begun to surrender to him in the sweetness of her passion; and yet even with that knowledge knocking reproachfully at his heart, he could not help being absorbed in the shimmering water, in the dark reflection of the trees, the gloom and shadow of the forest.

Presently he felt her form relax in his arms; then her soft regular breathing told him she had fallen asleep and he laughed low to himself.  How she would pout on the morrow when he teased her about it!  Then, realizing that she was tired with her long day’s journey, he reproached himself for keeping her from the needed rest, and instantly decided to carry her to the raft.  Yet such was the novelty of the situation that he yielded to its charm, and did not go at once.  The moonlight found bright threads in her wavy hair; it shone caressingly on her quiet face, and tried to steal under the downcast lashes.