“So they call him.  He is a notable Indian chieftain.  Most likely the French baptized him by that name.  They like to be called by some name and title which sounds like that of a white man.  He lives at the Indian town of Kittanning, on the banks of the Allegheny, and he is upheld by the French from Fort Duquesne and Venango.  They supply him with the munitions of war, and he makes of our lives a terror.  Colonel Armstrong has been sent by the Governor to try to fall upon him unawares, and oust him from his vantage ground.  If the town were but destroyed and he slain, we might know a little ease of mind.”

The eyes of the Rangers lighted with anticipation.  This was the first they had heard of real warfare.  If they could lend a hand to such an expedition as this, they would feel rewarded for all their pains and toil.

“Captain Jacobs, Captain Jacobs!” repeated Charles, with a gleam in his sombre eyes; “tell me what manner of man this Captain Jacobs is.”

“I have seen him once—­a giant in height, painted in vermilion, and carrying always in his hand a mighty spear, which they say none but he can wield.  His eyes roll terribly, and upon his brow is a strange scar shaped like a crescent—­”

“Ay, ay, ay; and in his hair is one white tuft, which he has braided with scarlet thread,” interposed Charles, panting and twitching in his excitement.

“That is the man—­the most bloodthirsty fire eater of all the Indian chiefs.  Could the country but be rid of him, we might sleep in our beds in peace once more, instead of lying shivering and shaking at every breath which passes over the forest at night.”

“Let us be gone!” cried Charles, shaking his knife in a meaning and menacing fashion; “I thirst to be there when that man’s record is closed.  Let me see his end; let me plunge my knife into his black heart!  There is another yet whom my vengeance must overtake; but let me fall upon this one first.”

“Was he one of the attacking party that desolated your homestead?” asked Stark, as they moved along in the given direction, after a brief pause for rest and refreshment.

“Ay, he was,” answered Charles grimly.  “I could not forget that gigantic form, that mighty spear, that scar and the white tuft!  He stood by, and laughed at my frantic struggles, at the screams of the children, at the agony of my gentle wife.  A fiend from the pit could not have been more cruel.  But the hour is at hand when it shall be done to him as he has done.  His hand lighted the wood pile they had set against the door of the house.  Let him suffer a like fate at our hands in the day of vengeance!”

Spurred on by the hope of striking some well-planted blow at the heart of the enemy, the hardy band of Rangers pushed their way through the forest tracks, scarcely pausing for rest or sleep, till the lights of a little camp and settlement twinkled before them in the dusk, and they were hailed by the voice of a watchful sentinel.