“I know.  If it were possible you would both save me,” said Betty, simply.  “Now you can do nothing but pray that God may spare my life long enough to reach the gate.  Silas, I am ready.”

Downstairs a little group of white-faced men were standing before the gateway.  Silas Zane had withdrawn the iron bar.  Sullivan stood ready to swing in the ponderous gate.  Wetzel was speaking with a clearness and a rapidity which were wonderful under the circumstances.

“When we let you out you’ll have a clear path.  Run, but not very fast.  Save your speed.  Tell the Colonel to empty a keg of powder in a table cloth.  Throw it over your shoulder and start back.  Run like you was racin’ with me, and keep on comin’ if you do get hit.  Now go!”

The huge gate creaked and swung in.  Betty ran out, looking straight before her.  She had covered half the distance between the Fort and the Colonel’s house when long taunting yells filled the air.

“Squaw!  Waugh!  Squaw!  Waugh!” yelled the Indians in contempt.

Not a shot did they fire.  The yells ran all along the river front, showing that hundreds of Indians had seen the slight figure running up the gentle slope toward the cabin.

Betty obeyed Wetzel’s instructions to the letter.  She ran easily and not at all hurriedly, and was as cool as if there had not been an Indian within miles.

Col.  Zane had seen the gate open and Betty come forth.  When she bounded up the steps he flung open that door and she ran into his arms.

“Betts, for God’s sake!  What’s this?” he cried.

“We are out of powder.  Empty a keg of powder into a table cloth.  Quick!  I’ve not a second to lose,” she answered, at the same time slipping off her outer skirt.  She wanted nothing to hinder that run for the block-house.

Jonathan Zane heard Betty’s first words and disappeared into the magazine-room.  He came out with a keg in his arms.  With one blow of an axe he smashed in the top of the keg.  In a twinkling a long black stream of the precious stuff was piling up in a little hill in the center of the table.  Then the corners of the table cloth were caught up, turned and twisted, and the bag of powder was thrown over Betty’s shoulder.

“Brave girl, so help me God, you are going to do it!” cried Col.  Zane, throwing open the door.  “I know you can.  Run as you never ran in all your life.”

Like an arrow sprung from a bow Betty flashed past the Colonel and out on the green.  Scarcely ten of the long hundred yards had been covered by her flying feet when a roar of angry shouts and yells warned Betty that the keen-eyed savages saw the bag of powder and now knew they had been deceived by a girl.  The cracking of rifles began at a point on the bluff nearest Col.  Zane’s house, and extended in a half circle to the eastern end of the clearing.  The leaden messengers of Death whistled past Betty.  They sped before her and