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"I know not that I understand you," said the renegade, evasively. "To be more explicit, then," rejoined Ella, "I trust that you, Simon Girty, whose acts hitherto have been such as to draw down reproaches and even curses upon your head, from many of your own race, may now be induced, by the prayer of her before you, to do an act of justice and generosity."
But surrender, and I give you my word of honor that no hair of your heads shall be harmed." There was a moment of silence. The mention of cannon had had its effect. True enough, cannon had been used, of late, against other stockades, with dire results. A brave voice answered Simon Girty. "You lie. Go back to your Injuns before a bullet pierces your coward heart." "Who says I lie?"
Both chiefs favored the death penalty. "Feed 'em to ther buzzards," croaked Jim Girty. Simon Girty knitted his brow in thought. The question of what to do with the converted Indians had long perplexed him. "No," said he; "let us drive away the missionaries, burn the village, and take the Indians back to camp. We'll keep them there; they'll soon forget."
"Then go sneaking back to your hole like a hyena, and stay there. Wetzel is on your trail! He missed you last night; but it was because of the girl. He's after you, Girty; he'll get you one of these days, and when he does My God! " Nothing could be more revolting than that swarthy, evil face turned pale with fear. Girty's visage was a ghastly, livid white.
"Yes," replied Henry, "it is the worst scoundrel in all the west, the leader of the men who fight against their own people, the king of the renegades, Simon Girty." "Girty coming to us under a white flag!" exclaimed the Major. "What can he want?" "We'll soon see," said Henry. "Look, there are the chiefs."
Another, of a very different stamp, was Simon Girty, of evil fame, whom the whole west grew to loathe, with bitter hatred, as "the white renegade." He was the son of a vicious Irish trader, who was killed by the Indians; he was adopted by the latter, and grew up among them, and his daring ferocity and unscrupulous cunning early made him one of their leaders.
He had joined their tribes, and was a ferocious and bloodthirsty leader of savage bands. When the settlers at Wheeling heard that Simon Girty and his Indians were advancing on the town, they left their homes and hastened into the fort. Scarcely had they done so when the savages made their appearance.
Girty, who was among the assailants, as a last shift, tried to get the garrison to surrender, assuring them that the Indians were hourly expecting reinforcements, including the artillery brought against Ruddle's and Martin's stations two years previously; and that if forced to batter down the walls no quarter would be given to any one.
He surmised readily by their air of perfect confidence and freedom that they were renegades, also, and he was not wrong. As he was soon to learn, they were Simon Girty, name of incredible infamy on the border, Moses Blackstaffe, but little his inferior in cunning and cruelty, and McKee, Eliot and Quarles. So Braxton Wyatt, white youth among the Indians, was not alone.
He and James Girty laughed at the story of John Slover. "That is a lie," they said. "He tries to frighten you. The British soldiers have been eating up the Americans. They soon will capture that man Washington. We say so, and we know." Another white Indian reported that Slover had agreed with him to escape. This angered the town, again. A general council was called.
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