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Betty awoke with a start.  She was wide awake in a second.  The moonbeams came through the leaves of the maple tree near her window and cast fantastic shadows on the wall of her room.  Betty lay quiet, watching the fairy-like figures on the wall and listening intently.  What had awakened her?  The night was still; the crow of a cock in the distance proclaimed that the hour of dawn was near at hand.  She waited for Tige’s bark under her window, or Sam’s voice, or the kicking and trampling of horses in the barn—­sounds that usually broke her slumbers in the morning.  But no such noises were forthcoming.  Suddenly she heard a light, quick tap, tap, and then a rattling in the corner.  It was like no sound but that made by a pebble striking the floor, bounding and rolling across the room.  There it was again.  Some one was tossing stones in at her window.  She slipped out of bed, ran, and leaned on the window-sill and looked out.  The moon was going down behind the hill, but there was light enough for her to distinguish objects.  She saw a dark figure crouching by the fence.

“Who is it?” said Betty, a little frightened, but more curious.

“Sh-h-h, it’s Miller,” came the answer, spoken in low voice.

The bent form straightened and stood erect.  It stepped forward under Betty’s window.  The light was dim, but Betty recognized the dark face of Miller.  He carried a rifle in his hand and a pack on his shoulder.

“Go away, or I’ll call my brother.  I will not listen to you,” said Betty, making a move to leave the window.

“Sh-h-h, not so loud,” said Miller, in a quick, hoarse whisper.  “You’d better listen.  I am going across the border to join Girty.  He is going to bring the Indians and the British here to burn the settlement.  If you will go away with me I’ll save the lives of your brothers and their families.  I have aided Girty and I have influence with him.  If you won’t go you’ll be taken captive and you’ll see all your friends and relatives scalped and burned.  Quick, your answer.”

“Never, traitor!  Monster!  I’d be burned at the stake before I’d go a step with you!” cried Betty.

“Then remember that you’ve crossed a desperate man.  If you escape the massacre you will beg on your knees to me.  This settlement is doomed.  Now, go to your white-faced lover.  You’ll find him cold.  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!” and with a taunting laugh he leaped the fence and disappeared in the gloom.

Betty sank to the floor stunned, horrified.  She shuddered at the malignity expressed in Miller’s words.  How had she ever been deceived in him?  He was in league with Girty.  At heart he was a savage, a renegade.  Betty went over his words, one by one.

“Your white-faced lover.  You will find him cold,” whispered Betty.  “What did he mean?”

Then came the thought.  Miller had murdered Clarke.  Betty gave one agonized quiver, as if a knife had been thrust into her side, and then her paralyzed limbs recovered the power of action.  She flew out into the passage-way and pounded on her brother’s door.