The White Squaw

A young frontiersman walking the woods near Tampa Bay answers a cry and finds an apparently murdered Indian youth beside another who raises a tomahawk. He shoots the assailant, discovers the wounded youth still alive, and revives him with water, brandy, and makeshift bandages. The survivor, Nelatu, identifies his attacker, Red Wolf, and explains a quarrel motivated by insults to a woman named Sansuta and by cowardice; the rescuer reveals he had earlier bested the attacker and spared him. After tending the wound, the frontiersman helps Nelatu into a canoe and heads for the nearby settlement, setting the scene for further frontier encounters of loyalty, betrayal, and survival.