“No, Myeerah, I did not say so.  There is no other woman.  It is that I am wretched and sick at heart.  Do you not see that this will end in a tragedy some day?  Can you not realize that we would be happier if you would let me go?  If you love me you would not want to see me dead.  If I do not marry you they will kill me; if I try to escape again they win kill me.  Let me go free.”

“I cannot!  I cannot!” she cried.  “You have taught me many of the ways of your people, but you cannot change my nature.”

“Why cannot you free me?”

“I love you, and I will not live without you.”

“Then come and go to my home and live there with me,” said Isaac, taking the weeping maiden in his arms.  “I know that my people will welcome you.”

“Myeerah would be pitied and scorned,” she said, sadly, shaking her head.

Isaac tried hard to steel his heart against her, but he was only mortal and he failed.  The charm of her presence influenced him; her love wrung tenderness from him.  Those dark eyes, so proud to all others, but which gazed wistfully and yearningly into his, stirred his heart to its depths.  He kissed the tear-wet cheeks and smiled upon her.

“Well, since I am a prisoner once more, I must make the best of it.  Do not look so sad.  We shall talk of this another day.  Come, let us go and find my little friend, Captain Jack.  He remembered me, for he ran out and grasped my knee and they pulled him away.”

CHAPTER VI.

When the first French explorers invaded the northwest, about the year 1615, the Wyandot Indians occupied the territory between Georgian Bay and the Muskoka Lakes in Ontario.  These Frenchmen named the tribe Huron because of the manner in which they wore their hair.

At this period the Hurons were at war with the Iroquois, and the two tribes kept up a bitter fight until in 1649, when the Hurons suffered a decisive defeat.  They then abandoned their villages and sought other hunting grounds.  They travelled south and settled in Ohio along the south and west shores of Lake Erie.  The present site of Zanesfield, named from Isaac Zane, marks the spot where the largest tribe of Hurons once lived.

In a grove of maples on the banks of a swift little river named Mad River, the Hurons built their lodges and their wigwams.  The stately elk and graceful deer abounded in this fertile valley, and countless herds of bison browsed upon the uplands.

There for many years the Hurons lived a peaceful and contented life.  The long war cry was not heard.  They were at peace with the neighboring tribes.  Tarhe, the Huron chief, attained great influence with the Delawares.  He became a friend of Logan, the Mingo chief.

With the invasion of the valley of the Ohio by the whites, with the march into the wilderness of that wild-turkey breed of heroes of which Boone, Kenton, the Zanes, and the Wetzels were the first, the Indian’s nature gradually changed until he became a fierce and relentless foe.