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Updated: June 13, 2025
He watches beside a pool until a Salmon swims within reach; then, with a swift movement of one paw, he scoops the fish on to the bank. Or he finds a place where the water is so shallow that the fish have difficulty in getting across, and there he seizes them as they struggle up the river. In winter he sleeps just as Buster does, usually in a well-hidden cave. "Mrs. Silvertip is a splendid mother.
Fierce, painted visages scowled from behind leveled rifles. "Don't yell!" cried a hoarse voice in English. Following the voice came a snapping of twigs, and then two other figures came into view. They were Girty and Silvertip. "Don't yell, er I'll leave you layin' here fer the buzzards," said the renegade.
Bringing up the rear was an athletic warrior, whose broad shoulders, sinewy arms, and shaved, polished head Joe remembered well. It was the Shawnee chief, Silvertip. When he, too, passed out of sight in the curve of willows, Joe found himself trembling. He turned eagerly to Wetzel; but instantly recoiled. Terrible, indeed, had been the hunter's transformation.
He led Girty back to his seat and spoke low, evidently trying to soothe the renegade's feelings. "Silvertip, give me a tomahawk, and let me fight him," implored Joe. "Paleface brave like Injun chief. Paleface Shawnee's prisoner no speak more," answered Silvertip, with respect in his voice. "Oh, where's Nellie?" A grief-stricken whisper caught Jim's ear.
But the slight delay saved Girty's life. The knife was knocked from Joe's hand and he leaped erect to find himself confronted by Silvertip. The chief held a tomahawk with which he had struck the weapon from the young man's grasp, and, to judge from his burning eyes and malignant smile, he meant to brain the now defenseless paleface.
The grizzly, however, stopped of his own accord, just outside of the shadow-line of the forest. Then he hunched in a big frosty heap over his prey and began to tear and rend. "Jess was a mighty good horse," muttered Dale, grimly; "too good to make a meal for a hog silvertip." Then the hunter silently rose to a kneeling position, swinging the rifle in front of him.
Once on a bare patch of ground we saw where the grizzly had passed. The big, round tracks, toeing in a little, made a chill go over me. No doubt of its being a silvertip! We climbed and rode to the high point, and coming out upon the summit of the mountain we all heard the deep, hoarse baying of the pack. They were in the canyon down a bare grassy slope and over a wooded bench at our feet.
"Three white captives, two of 'em women," uttered the hunter, as if weighing in his mind the importance of this fact. "Were those women on the raft?" questioned Joe, and as Wetzel only nodded, he continued, "A white man and two women, six warriors, Silvertip, and that renegade, Jim Girty!" Wetzel deigned not to answer Joe's passionate outburst, but maintained silence and his rigid posture.
Most of these Delawares are honest, for all their blood-shedding and cruelty. With them might is right. The Delawares won't try to get your horse for you; but they'll stick to you when you assert your rights. They don't like the Shawnee, anyhow. If Silvertip refuses to give you the horse, grab him before he can draw a weapon, and beat him good. You're big enough to do it.
What had that Indian chief told Silvertip? To Joe it seemed that they acted as if believing foes were on all sides. Though they hid their tracks, it was, apparently, not the fear of pursuit alone which made them cautious.
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