SILVER RIFLE,
THE GIRL TRAILER;
OR,
THE WHITE TIGERS OF LAKE SUPERIOR.
BY CAPTAIN CHARLES HOWARD.
AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POCKET NOVELS:
No. 45. The Elk King.
No. 50. The Wolf Queen.
No. 52. The Mad Chief.
No. 60. Merciless Mat.
No. 64. The Island Trapper.
No. 69. Yellow Hunter.
NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
FRANK STARR & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS
I Ahdeek, the Half-Breed 9
II The Figure in the Chapel 13
III The Cave 21
IV Fighting for a Prize 27
V Silver Rifle Among Her Foes 33
VI Demanding the Dead 40
VIII An Unexpected Death-Shot 47
VIII Escaping 52
IX The Indian Dogs 60
X Danger and Deliverance 66
XI Hondurah’s Last Trail 73
XII The Dead Hand 77
XIII A Blow for a Blow 82
XIV Two Scenes in a Tree Top 88
XV The Mystery Dissolved 94
SILVER RIFLE,
THE GIRL TRAILER.
CHAPTER I.
AHDEEK, THE HALF-BREED.
In the center of a thickly-wooded dell, situated about three miles from
the southern shore of Lake Superior, a half-breed youth, clad in the
habiliments of a Chippewa Indian, _discussed_ a frugal meal. The sun was
sinking behind the wonderful Chapel Rocks, and his last beams,
stretching through the festooned forests, fell upon and clothed the
half-breed in golden light.
His features were clear-cut and regular, his body lithe but well-knit,
and a tender expression beamed from the blackest of eyes. A
long-barreled rifle rested on his foot, his mink-skin cap surmounted the
stock, and on the index finger of his left hand there was a gold ring of
singular workmanship, surmounted with a single brilliant.
He was so absorbed in the discussion of his repast, that he grew
oblivious to his surroundings, until he put his hands into his pemmican
bag, and discovered that his stock of that edible was exhausted.
“Pemmican all gone!” he ejaculated, with a smile. “Ahdeek go, too, now,
he and Nahma not meet for three moons. Nahma promised to be in big cave
when Ahdeek come back, and Ahdeek much to tell him.”
The youth slowly rose to his feet, picking up his rifle as he executed
the movement.
“Sun nearly gone to sleep,” he murmured, glancing toward the west. “Soon
he sink to the fishes of Gitche Gumee.”[1]
A moment longer the half-breed lingered. Then he started toward the
lake, but with a single stride he came to a halt, and the click, click
of a well oiled rifle-lock followed the lifting of his rifle from a
“trail.”
A suspicious sound had arrested his steps, and, as he leaned forward,
and with shaded eyes tried to penetrate the forest directly before him,
the sharp report of a rifle changed the scene.
The half-breed recoiled with a quick ejaculation of surprise, and his
own weapon dropped to the ground—the lock knocked out of time by the
unseen enemy’s bullet.
“Who shoot?” cried the youth, as he sprung to his trusty gun, and
snatched it from the ground.
His exclamation was answered by terrific yells, and as he sprung erect
with the crippled rifle clubbed, he found a dozen savages rushing upon
him.
He did not speak, but faced the dusky demons with tomahawk in one hand,
the rifle in the other. He saw at once that his enemies desired to take
him alive, for they could have cleft his heart with a dozen balls while
he walked leisurely beneath the tree vines.
“The Chippewas have caged the Tiger!” cried the leader of the Indians, a
prepossessing young brave, who had won distinction and his
eagle-feathers quite early in life. “They have trailed him long; they
have watched for him in the caves of Gitche Gumee; they have followed
him through the great wood. Now let him be a man, and surrender when he
sees that he can not escape.”
The chief spoke in the language of his nation, and a smile wreathed the
lips of the noble quarry, who, a moment after the chief had finished,
threw rifle, knife and tomahawk on the ground in token of surrender.
Then he folded his half-naked arms, and surveyed the savages who sprung
forward elated with long-sought triumph.
“The White Tiger is a true brave,” said the red leader, as he reached a
spot within ten feet of the youth. “He knows when—”
“Ki-o-ee-chee!”
The yell pealed from the throat of the half-breed, and while yet it
quivered his lips, he was among his dusky enemies, scattering them like
chaff with the butt of his rifle!
The Chippewas recoiled before the impetuosity of the attack, for the
youth seemed to have suddenly been transformed into a destroying fury,
and quick, sharp exclamations of vengeance continually fell from his
lips, while he plied the rifle with a dexterity which told that he was
no novice in such warfare.
In a moment he had cleared for himself a path through the ranks of his
foes, and once more, with his weapon at a trail, he was pushing toward
the lake. But he ran at the top of his speed now, and eight mad red-men
were on his trail.
Determined to take the daring half-breed alive, they put forth their
entire strength in the pursuit.
Ahdeek ran, perhaps, as he never ran before, for the fellows on his
trail were fresh, while before the attack his features and physique
indicated fatigue.
However, he cleared fallen trees and clumps of briers with astonishing
dexterity, and at length the swash of Superior’s waves against the
pictured rocks, fell upon his ears.
“Ahdeek soon meet Nahma, if Kitchi-Manitou watches over him!” said the
half-breed, between short breaths. “But he dead; he travel long from the
little lake near where Pontiac makes war speeches to his braves, and he
loaded with powder for Nahma and Ahdeek.”
The pursuers seemed to notice their victim’s exhaustion; once or twice
he touched obstacles which, a few moments since, he could have cleared
without difficulty, and, speaking encouragingly to each other, they sent
up a chorus of yells which must have fallen laden with doom upon the
heart of the hunted.
Nearer and nearer the pictured cliffs Ahdeek approached.
The sun had disappeared beneath the surface of Superior’s restless
waves, and the forest was growing dark.
Suddenly, with a grunt indicative of a surprise which smacked of the
terrible, the hunted half-breed stopped in his tracks, and threw his
rifle above his head, while he griped the blade of his keen knife
between his teeth.
The cause for this strange action was the presence of a new foe, and
that foe indicated his position by a pair of fiery eyeballs, and low,
hoarse growls of bloodthirsty vindictiveness.
Ahdeek might have avoided the danger by rushing on; but the suddenness
with which he had discovered the panther—for an upward glance had
revealed the wood-terror’s whereabouts—had caused him to halt. It was a
perilous moment, and all at once, with a trebly fierce growl, the beast
left the limb, and shot down upon Ahdeek like a descending bomb, as
fierce and irresistible.
The half-breed recoiled a pace and struck. But his rifle, outreaching
too far, fell upon the panther’s haunches, and a second later he was
borne backward, his unprotected shoulder between the pearly teeth of the
brute.
He struggled bravely, but, weakened by the life-chase and deprived of
his knife, he could do but little.
He heard the footsteps, almost drowned by yells, that approached from
the east, and then, ceasing to struggle, his head fell back, and calmly
he gazed at the brute whose weight seemed to crush his breast.
“Panther eat Ahdeek,” he cried. “Don’t let Chippewa burn him. They hunt
him long—panther catch him, at last!”
With the utterance of the last word, the footsteps grew silent, and the
following moment the death-yell of the panther mingled with the roar of
the water that spent its fury against the foundation of Chapel Rock.
Ahdeek started at the shot, raised himself to his knees, and felt and
looked for his weapons.
In a moment his eyes fell upon his rifle, and, with a yell of triumph,
he sprung toward it.
He was determined to die rather than surrender to implacable foes, who
had lately drank the blood of peaceful traders, “scooped up in the
hollow of joined hands.”
He turned, with clubbed rifle, despite the fearful pain which his
wounded shoulder caused, and dared the vengeance of his foes with a
shout of defiance.
The shout was greeted with one of like import, and a moment later, the
Chippewas had closed around the brave half-breed.
Ahdeek struck with his remaining strength; but the rifle was caught by a
young Hercules, and wrenched from his grip.
“Now, what says the White Tiger?” cried a savage, triumphantly.
“He says that he slew the Black Eagle with his rifle,” was the reply.
“Not far away lie four Chippewas, who have sung the war-song for the
last time. Ahdeek struck them! Squaws, the young half-breed has not
lived in vain!”
Irritated beyond endurance, the savages contracted their red ranks, and
tomahawks shot upward for the carnival of death.
Ahdeek rose with an effort, and faced the savages with folded arms.
“Strike! Send Ahdeek after Black Eagle.”
“The White Tiger of Gitche Gumee dies here!” was the reply, and the
spokesman of the party clutched the half-breed’s shoulder, as he raised
his knife.
But a yell, the counterpart of which pealed from Ahdeek’s throat when
attacked in the dell, startled every one, and the next moment a youthful
figure dropped, like a thunderbolt, among the Chippewas.
“Devils!” he cried, hurling aside the Indian who held Ahdeek. “Demons,
you’ve caught the wrong man, I say. _I_ am the White Tiger of Lake
Superior! _I_, not the half-breed, am the hunted depopulator of your
accursed race!”
The savages recoiled aghast, as a dark cloak fell from the youth’s
shoulders, and exposed his handsome figure.
Ahdeek, with a cry of “Nahma!” stepped to the Destroyer’s side.
CHAPTER II.
THE FIGURE IN THE CHAPEL.
The youth’s voice broke the silence that followed his last word:
“The Chippewas face the White Tiger now!” he thundered, as his rifle
struck his shoulder, and his eye swept the startled band before him. “He
is not merciless. Bad Indians have lied about him; he does not live on
blood. Now, back to your lodges toward the rising sun. I spare you now,
but if ever you cross the White Tiger’s trail again, Chippewas, you
shall feel his teeth then. I spare you for this time, because you are
young warriors. Why stand you here staring? Back to the trails that lead
to the council-fires. Back! I say, before the White Tiger slays!”
With the last words the youth’s cheek dropped nearer the rifle, and the
muzzle almost touched the leader’s forehead.
“Go!” he thundered again. “Hark! the Manitou is speaking; he is painting
the waves of Gitche Gumee with his fire.”
The dread of the White Tiger was manifest then, for, without a word in
reply, the sub-chief turned on his heel, and strode deliberately into
the forest.
“Warriors, follow your chief!” cried the Destroyer, and a moment later
he and Ahdeek stood alone amid the prevailing darkness.
“They fear the White Tiger, Ahdeek,” said the youth, with a smile, as he
turned to the young half-breed. “Boy, had it not been for your wounded
condition, eight Chippewas would not have walked from this spot. But you
could not assist, so I took advantage of the terror which I had inspired
in their bosoms, and, see, they run from the White Tiger when he follows
not.”
“Nahma has broken his word,” said the young half-breed, refusing to
return the smile of mingled scorn and contempt that wreathed White
Tiger’s lips. “He said that he would never show himself to the red-man
while Ahdeek stood among them. They should not see Nahma and Ahdeek with
one eye.”
“I know it, Ahdeek; but I could not avoid it to-night. Ahdeek was on the
death-trail; Nahma was near, and his arm, his words, not forked like the
trees, alone could snatch his brother from the jaws of death. Ahdeek
will forgive, will he not?”
They were walking toward the lake now, and in the stillness of that
festooned woods the half-breed put forth his hand.
“Ahdeek will forgive his pale brother,” he said, in a low, cautious
tone. “Nahma could not keep his oath, and save his Ahdeek.”
“Then all is well, boy,” replied the white youth. “The Chippewas now
know that Ahdeek is not the White Tiger of Lake Superior, and that
instead of hunting one destroyer, they must hunt, and be hunted by, two.
But, boy, did you get the powder?”
“Ahdeek wears two big belts full,” replied the half-breed.
“Good! we shall not want now. What are the Indians doing?”
“Bad work! bad work!” cried the half-breed. “Pontiac has struck one hard
blow on the big waters.”
“That Ottawa fiend! How I wish he would show his painted face in these
parts!” ejaculated the youth, and his fingers closed on his rifle with
determined emphasis as he spoke. “But tell me about that strong blow,
Ahdeek.”
Then the half-breed proceeded to give an account of the fall of the lake
forts, and the investment of Detroit, all of which was news to the white
youth.
“While the Ottawas and their allies struck the posts, the Chippewas
struck the trappers hereabouts,” said the White Tiger. “Ahdeek, I can
tell you of twenty-eight trappers who fell in their huts or at their
traps the selfsame night.”
Ahdeek clutched the Destroyer’s arm.
“Trappers all dead?”
“All but several who escaped in boats.”
“Where Snowbeard?”
“Dead.”
The half-breed groaned.
“Where house?”
“Burned up!”
White teeth gritted audibly in the darkness.
“Now, Ahdeek,” said the youth, “now that Snowbeard is dead, tell me what
he was to you. Why have you left the castle at midnight to seek the hut
of that old man! Unravel the mystery while I unfasten the boat.”
The youth stooped over the rope that lashed a little boat to a sharp
rock, and tugged at the knots.
“Ahdeek can not tell Nahma until he takes the trail to Snowbeard’s
house.”
“Boy, I will keep the secret. Is Ahdeek afraid to trust his brother?”
“Afraid to trust the brother whose couch he has shared for many moons?
No!” cried the half-breed. “But he can not tell now. Old Snowbeard was
dear to Ahdeek, and the Chippewas shall feel more than ever now the
wildcat’s claws and teeth.”
The youth did not reply, but continued to work at the boat in silence.
Above him the harsh thunder rolled, and the stormy waves and rocky shore
were vividly revealed by the glare of lightning.
At length, tired of tugging at knots which the spray had rendered
openless, the boy, with an ejaculation of impatience, severed the rope,
and the twain seated themselves in the boat.
“I’ll paddle, Ahdeek,” said the white youth. “Don’t worry your shoulder
with any work till I get it fixed up, in the castle. Those devilish
panthers can bite like all get out.”
“Panthers’ teeth sharp,” replied the half-breed, passing a hand lightly
over the crunched shoulder; “but shoulder soon be well.”
“Providence willing,” smiled the youth, and a moment later he continued:
“Ahdeek, a ghost has visited Gitche Gumee during your absence.”
An exclamation of surprise followed this startling announcement, and by
the lightning the Destroyer saw a pair of eyes staring into his.
“A spirit from the Manitou-land on the big sea water?”
“I should call what I have seen a ghost,” was the still mysterious
reply. “One week ago this very night of storm, I saw it first. I was out
on the lake near the Fox’s Leap, and the lightning flashed as it flashes
now. The waves were mad, and to a rock that protruded above them I
moored the boat, resolved to enjoy the storm. All at once the plash of
paddles struck my ears, but the next moment all was still, and I
dismissed the thought. Then, just as I had relaxed my vigilance, a flash
of lightning came, and, Ahdeek, within five feet of me, lashed to my
crag, I beheld a boat.”
“A real boat?” interrupted the half-breed.
“A canoe from spirit-land, I guess,” said the Destroyer, smiling. “The
boat, as I could see at a glance, was fashioned like ours, and, boy, it
looked like the boat some thief stole from you a moon since. In that
boat sat a human being, most beautiful to behold. She was white like the
lilies, and as fair. I saw her but a moment, for all became dark, but
ere the last beam of light fled I saw her start, for our eyes had met.
Instantly I sprung forward and griped her rope, but the next second I
heard the zip of a knife-blade, as it cut the wind, and I held a
worthless piece of rope in my hand.”
“Spirit gone!” smiled the half-breed.
“Yes, the boat and its occupant had vanished. I could not trail her on
water, and I hunted for her till the storm-clouds passed off, and the
stars shone again. I’ve looked for her every night since, Ahdeek. I’ve
lain for hours in my boat moored to that rock, but the ghost would not
come back. I’d like to have you see it, Ahdeek; you’d believe in spirits
then, I’m thinking.”
The half-breed laughed in a low voice, but a thoughtful expression soon
returned to his face.
“He had a daughter who was a pappoose when the squaw died,” he murmured,
in a low tone; but he did not know that the ear of the White Tiger, who
was paddling intently through the white-crested waves, almost touched
his lips.
“Did White Tiger hear what Ahdeek’s lips said?” exclaimed the
half-breed, as the lightning suddenly revealed his brother’s attitude.
“I was listening to the waves, boy,” was the evasive reply, and the
paddle was thrust deeper into the water. “We are near the chapel now.
Hark! how madly the waves dash against its foundation.”
The youth now guided the boat further out into the lake, and dexterously
avoided sunken rocks, which yearned for victims.
The flashes of lightning were quite frequent, and told the voyagers that
the storm would discharge its fury about the spot where their cave was
situated, nearly nine miles below Chapel Rock.
“I despise this place on such a night,” ejaculated the white youth. “We
always strike one rock, and they’re getting thick now.”
The words had scarcely left his mouth when the little canoe brought up
against the rock, and all sounds were drowned by a peal of thunder.
“We’re near the chapel,” said Ahdeek.
“Near enough to shoot an Indian from the ‘pulpit,’” replied the
Destroyer. “Curse this rock! We’ll rest here, and look at the boat.”
So he threw a noose over the sharp crag, and proceeded to examine the
craft which the waves tossed hither and thither, like a cork.
Ahdeek did not assist, but kept his face turned toward Chapel Rock,
waiting for something, as his countenance indicated.
That something seemed to be a flash of lightning, for, as it lit up the
water, the half-breed started back with a cry of amazement.
“What’s up, Ahdeek?” cried the white boy—for boy in years the young
Destroyer seemed—turning quickly from his labor.
“This spirit!” gasped Ahdeek, and his fingers encircled the youth’s arm.
“Look up at chapel and wait,” he continued. “Nahma see ghost high on
rock;” and then in silence the twain waited for the lightning.
The “Grand Chapel,” as the famous rock is now called, stood about fifty
feet above the level of the lake, and its arched roof was supported by
two gigantic and beautiful columns, which appear to have been hewn and
placed there by skillful hands. The backward reach of the roof rests
upon the main cliff, and within the chapel is the base of a broken
column that is strongly suggestive of a pulpit. The roof was then, and
still is, crowned with a growth of fir trees.
“Ahdeek sure see ghost in chapel. There! look.”
The lightning played about the great rock a second, and in that brief
moment of time the Destroyer beheld the figure of a young girl standing
against the “pulpit” in the chapel. The color and trimming of her
close-fitting garments could not be distinguished; and her head was
crowned with a white fox-cap, and her right hand clutched a rifle whose
stock glittered like silver, and rested on the ground at her feet.
She seemed the queen of the storm as she stood above the waves which
madly leaped up the base of the rock, eager, as it were, to grip and
pull her down.
“The ghost, by heavens!” exclaimed the Destroyer. “Another flash—now!”
They looked again, and in the succeeding darkness clutched each others’
arms.
“Ahdeek, did you see—”
“Indians above the chapel!”
“I saw but one.”
“Ahdeek thought he saw another feather.”
“It might have been a fir.”
“Yes, the light did not last long. The Indian Ahdeek saw, hung over the
chapel with a tomahawk in his hand.”
The White Tiger was silent for a moment.
“They’ve tracked her to the chapel, and with the next flash the brave
intends to hurl his tomahawk into her brain. Ahdeek, steady the canoe,
for God’s sake!”
The half-breed dropped his rifle, and hurried to the furthest end of the
light craft, which action served in a measure to steady it in the
momentary languor of the waves.
The youth cocked and raised his rifle; but with a cry of horror he
quickly lowered it, without firing, before the flash of the next
electric bolt disappeared.
Three half-naked, painted, and feathered savages stood within the
chapel, and a fourth was lowering himself from the roof!
But the girl—the spirit of the lake—was gone—not a sign of her late
occupation of the chapel was visible!
“Strange! terribly strange!” cried the young Destroyer. “I’d give a hand
to know where she is.”
“Ask the mad waters,” said Ahdeek. “The brave’s tomahawk knocked spirit
from chapel.”
“Don’t make me think thus, boy. She’s too pretty, too bold, to die in
such a way. I wonder who she was—or is, for I will not believe her
dead.”
“Then how she got from Indians?”
The youth was silenced.
There was but one way to escape the savages, and that was by a leap into
the white waters, forty feet below the chapel!
And that leap, seemingly, was but a synonym of death.
“We must go, Ahdeek,” suddenly cried the Destroyer. “But, first, we’ll
tell those murderers that somebody besides themselves are abroad. We can
shoot into the chapel in the dark. We know exactly where it is. Ready!”
The next moment two rifles were raised, and two reports blended with the
roar of the waters.
“Loose the canoe now.”
The half-breed obeyed, and as the paddles kissed the waves once more,
the lightning revealed but two Indians in the chapel!
“We dropped two,” said the white youth, triumphantly, “And now—”
He was interrupted by a cry of discovery.
“Ahdeek, what—”
“Ahdeek’s lost his shining ring,” was the startling response. “Oh,
Kitchi-Manitou, where is it?”
“In the lake, Ahdeek.”
“No, no, say in the woods, White Tiger. Ahdeek swore to give it to a
pale girl after a time. Here, brother, kill Ahdeek for breaking his
word. Ahdeek is a bigger fool than Paupaukeewis. Pale girl never get
ring now. Ahdeek ought to die for losing it,” and the half-breed hid his
eyes as he groaned in all the bitterness of his soul.
“What is the mystery that enwraps this wild boy’s birth and that ring?”
murmured the Destroyer, as he steered the frail boat among the rocks.
“For months I have tried to fathom it, but can not. He keeps secrets
well. He has said that the pale girl might come after the ring some day,
and I half—no, I _wholly_ believe that the girl in the chapel was the
owner of Ahdeek’s ring, which he would have defended with the last drop
of his blood.”
CHAPTER III.
THE CAVE.
It was near midnight when the two voyagers reached their cave home,
whose main entrance was through a beautiful arch more than one hundred
feet in hight. It lay but eight miles to the west of Chapel Rock, but
the time spent by the twain while watching the strange and ghostly
tableaux, which the lightning had revealed, prevented them from reaching
the “castle” sooner.
The waves were still unpacified; they dashed into the arch with a fury
perfectly irresistible, and the Destroyer laid the paddle aside as the
white-crested billows took up the barque in their arms, as it were, and
hurled it far into the cave.
“Well, Ahdeek, here we are once more,” said the youth, springing from
the canoe, which the receding waves had left stranded on the hard floor
of the natural hall. “Now, if nobody has disturbed our furniture and so
forth, we are, indeed, all right. I, for one white boy, feel sleepy, and
I hope daylight will find me in the arms of the drowsy god.”
“Ahdeek not sleepy at all,” was the reply, as the speaker stepped from
the boat. “He want to find ring, so that when pale girl come to him an’
say, ‘Where ring?’ Ahdeek say, ‘Here, pale girl,’ an’ he give it up.”
“Boy, where do you think you lost the ring?” questioned the White Tiger.
The half-breed, forgetting that they stood in Cimmerian darkness,
answered with a shake of his head, which, of course, his companion could
not see.
“Maybe you lost it in the woods, when the Chippewas chased you?” he
suggested.
“Ahdeek go back on trail to-morrow. He hunt for ring; if he no hunt, the
bones of the old pale-face will rise from his grave and haunt
half-breed.”
“Well, we’ll cease to talk about that ring,” said the Destroyer, who had
lifted the canoe from the beach, and deposited it on pegs against the
black wall. “I’m so glad that you’ve returned safely, and, after supper
I’ll fix your shoulder up; then we’ll divide the powder.”
They moved off in the gloom.
“So,” said Ahdeek, musingly, “Chippewas kill all traders. Did they hunt
for White Tiger?”
“I should reckon the red fiends did hunt for me,” replied the youth.
“Day and night, since the massacre, I have had legions of dusky foes on
my trail, but I have succeeded in eluding them, and when they least
expected the White Tiger, he would leap upon them, and bury his teeth in
their flesh.”
The half-breed uttered a low ejaculation of supreme satisfaction.
Now all conversation ceased, and presently Ahdeek found himself standing
alone against a ragged wall. His companion had suddenly, noiselessly
deserted him, and presently the whine of a panther’s cub saluted his
ears.
“Nobody in castle,” muttered Ahdeek, starting forward, and when he had
advanced several steps the flash of flints greeted his vision.
“The coast is clear, boy,” said the Destroyer, looking up from the fire
he was kindling. “We’ll enjoy a rest now, and then we’ll see if we can’t
find the ring, the ghost, and at the same time, pay the Indians for
killing our trader friends.”
The half-breed threw himself before the blaze, and tenderly removed his
hunting-coat.
“White Tiger look at shoulder now,” he said; “it beginning to hurt.”
But the boy did not reply. He was gazing at the opposite wall of the
cavern, and slowly, and apparently without noticing Ahdeek, he drew a
torch from the fire and rose to his feet.
Ahdeek regarded him, silenced by wonder, and afraid to move.
Once or twice the youth flourished the flambeau about his head, to
brighten the blaze, and then approached the wall with rapid strides.
“Am I the victim of a delusion?” he queried in a low tone. “Surely I saw
marks on the wall—marks which were not there when I left this place four
days since.”
Within several feet of the rock he paused, and looked straight ahead,
but saw nothing save gray stone, highly polished by the hand of nature.
For a moment he was inclined to laugh at this deception, when suddenly
Ahdeek leaped from the fire and with a cry of “The ring!—the ring!”
bounded toward him.
Was Ahdeek a victim of the delusion as well as himself?
“There’s no ring here, boy,” began the Destroyer, with a bright smile.
“Our eyes—”
But his sentence was broken abruptly, for the half-breed jerked him,
with much rudeness, to one side, and pointed to the wall obliquely to
their right.
The youth uttered a cry of profound wonderment, for on the glittering
surface of the wall, he saw a large ring which, notwithstanding the rude
tracery, resembled the bauble that Ahdeek had lately lost!
For a minute the twain looked from the picture into each others’ faces.
What did the ring mean? Who had traced it on the wall?
The Destroyer stepped nearer, and letters suddenly grew into being on
the smooth stone. The changing of the torch revealed them.
“What words say?” cried Ahdeek, clutching his comrade’s arm, as he
pointed excitedly to the letters which he could not master.
The young death-dealer did not reply, but continued to shift his
position until every letter was plainly revealed.
Then he read:
“White Tiger, you have my father’s ring! Meet me here one week from
this night, and place it on my finger, else I rid the Chippewas of
their Destroyer.
“_August 12, 1763._
“_Signed_, Marie Knight.”
The Destroyer read the inscription twice before he moved a muscle.
“Come, brother, what words say?” questioned Ahdeek, impatiently.
“They tell you to place the ring on the pale girl’s hand one week from
last night, or die.”
The half-breed smiled ludicrously.
“Ring lost.”
“It must be found!”
“But where pale girl?”
The death-dealer shook his head, and the scene on Chapel Rock again swam
before his eyes.
“How girl know Ahdeek had ring?” questioned the boy, a moment later.
“No doubt she caught a glimpse of it in the wood, as you rushed past her
some time. She has tracked you to the cave, and discovered that here you
live. She believes you the real White Tiger, and, entering here last
night, and finding you absent, she has left her commands on the wall.”
Ahdeek nodded, and murmured, “Good, good!”
At length he looked up.
“Come, White Tiger, tie up Ahdeek’s wounds,” he said. “He want to go
hunt pale girl’s ring. He go ’fore day.”
“No, no, you must stay here until _I_ leave,” said the Destroyer, with
determination. “Consider, boy; she will not return for one week. In two
days we can retrace your tracks. You lost the ring in the wood
to-night—not in the lake, as I first thought, for your hands were not in
the water. But really, boy, I think that the pale girl will never come
for the ring.”
The half-breed looked up inquiringly.
“I believe that we saw her in Chapel Rock to-night.”
Ahdeek shook his head.
“May be pale girl,” he said.
“Then she must be dead. So, Ahdeek, don’t trouble yourself—”
“Pale girl not dead!” interrupted the half-breed, bringing his hand down
upon his brother’s shoulder with emphasis. “_He_ said that she would
come for ring, and while he spoke, Kitchi-Manitou took him to his
lodge.”
“Who was _he_, Ahdeek?”
“Can’t tell now, White Tiger,” was the reply. “She not dead; she must
have ring within six sleeps, or Ahdeek steps upon the long trail.”
“No!” cried the young avenger. “Ahdeek, we are brothers, and I will kill
the person who sheds one drop of your blood—I’ll break the arm that is
uplifted to strike you.”
“White Tiger better not strike pale girl,” said the half-breed, looking
the Destroyer squarely in the eye. “She—”
Here he caught his tongue, and for the fourth time called attention to
his shoulder.
Before turning to the fire, the youth re-read the writing on the wall,
and, as he stepped therefrom, the lines gradually faded, until they were
entirely lost to his vision.
Ahdeek remained sullen during the dressing of his wound, which was not
so bad as it might have been, the heavy hunting-frock having protected
his flesh.
“I do not think the Indians killed Doc Cromer,” said the Destroyer,
looking up from the meal they were discussing before the blaze. “I
couldn’t find his body after the massacre, and I wonder that he has not
been here. You know, boy, that he was the only trader who knew our
cave.”
“Oh, he dead, like all the traders!” said the half-breed. “Indians make
sure work of traders. Pontiac got long arms and strong voice.”
The final word still quivered Ahdeek’s lips, when the boy Destroyer
dropped his pemmican at the edge of the fire, and leaped to his feet.
A second later the half-breed followed his example, and side by side the
twain stood facing the entrance with ready rifles.
A score of rifle-shots, scarcely distinguishable from a single report,
had risen above the noise of the storm, just beyond the mouth of the
castle.
“The Chips are everywhere!” exclaimed the youth, in a low tone. “Who can
they be chasing to-night?”
The question was answered by the sound of footsteps, and the next moment
a figure bounded from the corridor into the firelight. Upon a sight of
it, the faces of the tenants of the cave touched their rifle-stocks; but
the Destroyer quickly dropped his weapon and covered Ahdeek’s flint with
his hand.
“Spare him, Ahdeek!” he cried. “’Tis Cromer, thank God!”
The new-comer looked up at the mention of his name, uttered a light cry
of joy, staggered forward, and then sunk heavily to the ground.
“Shot by the red fiends!” cried the Destroyer, springing toward the
prostrate man, who lay on the rocks bleeding, gasping, and trying to
rise.
“Leave me!” he ejaculated, noticing the Destroyer’s action. “They were
watching the cave, curse—the—hounds! Listen! there! they’re coming now.
Go! they can’t torture the old trader who outwitted them at his cabin!”
“We won’t leave you, Doc,” said the youth. “We are not ingrates.”
“Rifle, rifle, then!” shrieked the trader. “One more shot before I go!”
With mighty effort he raised himself to his knees, and griped the weapon
which Ahdeek, with a cry of admiration, thrust forward.
There was no retreating. The trader was too weak to run; the avengers
too brave, too manly to desert him to the tomahawk.
The moment that followed the trader’s last words saw the mouth of the
corridor swarming with Indians.
They were met by a trio of rifles, not a shot of which was thrown away.
The Chippewas did not pause; their dead comrades were hurled aside
before they could touch the ground, and, though the heroic three used
their pistols to advantage, they rushed on to certain victory—which so
often rewards overwhelming numbers.
Doc Cromer, the trader, sunk exhausted before the fierce onset, and the
clubbed rifles of the White Tiger and his darker brother, who disputed
the ground with heroic valor, could not turn the fortune of battle.
For a moment a confused mass of humanity swayed to and fro in the center
of the cavern, then it became entangled, and a terrific shout soared to
the circled roof.
It was a shout telling that the bitterest enemies the Indians ever
possessed, had fallen alive into their hands.
CHAPTER IV.
FIGHTING FOR A PRIZE.
The light that broke upon the lake after the night of storm and tempest
greeted a calm.
The white crested billows had returned to their strongholds, but the
lake shore was strewn with their handiwork. Strong trees, which the wind
had uprooted on islands, had been dashed upon the beach, and in some
places tree was heaped on tree, lending a terrible aspect to the stony
shore. Such storms are frequent visitors to Lake Superior, even at this
late day.
In the branching top of a young fir, which lay at the edge of the water,
not far from Chapel Rock, something scintillated like a diamond, in the
strong light.
Its brightness would have dazzled the eyes of a beholder, and, with the
belief that it was something very valuable, he would have been drawn to
the spot.
As the sun climbed the eastern horizon and darted its beams over the
“pulpit,” directly upon the shining “thing,” the fir-limbs moved as
though something imbued with life lay beneath them, and possessed the
curiosity.
The woods and shores of Superior swarmed with Indians, and it is not
surprising that from the cliffs above, a red hunter riveted his eyes
upon the particular spot described. Evidently the young brave had lately
reached the hights, for his dress showed proofs of a long journey, and
the results of a late war expedition, in the shape of a snowy scalp,
hung at his deer-skin girdle.
He had approached the cliff with that proverbial caution characteristic
of his people, and almost the first thing that met his gaze was the
shining object among the fir boughs. He started at the unexpected sight,
and when, at last, the thing resolved itself into a silver star, he rose
with a cry of mingled wonder and exultation, and prepared to descend.
Perhaps he had caught a glimpse of something other than the bright star,
for an anxious expression overspread his face, and he looked cautiously
about while he clambered down a great fissure in the cliffs. All signs
of fatigue had left him now; he seemed the fresh warrior of a fortnight
since, and, after walking erect toward the fir awhile, he suddenly
dropped on all fours, and moved forward again, like a wary animal.
He reached his objective point at last, and, parting the verdant boughs,
peered through upon the highly ornamented butt of a light rifle!
The next moment the young Indian’s eyes fell upon the owner of the
weapon.
She lay near the polished barrel, only deeper among the fir, and the hue
of a corpse rested upon her fair face and slender hands.
The peeping lids gave the savage a glimpse of blue eyes, and the masses
of golden hair, darkened by the water they held imprisoned, must have
captivated him.
Motionless, breathless she lay on the stony ground, and the hand which
the Indian touched was as cold as ice.
He shook his head sorrowfully as he tenderly lifted the body from the
ground.
“Silver Rifle dead! She no be Dohma’s now! Why she come to Gitche Gumee?
To die by the big waters an’ be buried by the Chippewa whose heart she
stole three moons ago? Dohma go bury Silver Rifle in big hole, far from
bad waters.”
He did not neglect the beautiful rifle, as he moved down the lake shore
with his burden, for he bore it in the same hand that griped his own.
A few minutes’ walk brought him to one of the Superior’s numerous
caverns, which he entered by wading to his waist in the cold water. Soon
he found himself in gross darkness, through which he groped his way for
several hundred feet.
At length he paused, and laid his burden on the ground.
Then, with the aid of his flints, he kindled a fire among some dried
fir-boughs, into the light of which he bore his silent prize.
“No Injun strike Silver Rifle,” he murmured aloud. “She fell into water,
and the big waves around her. Dohma follow her long time to tell her he
love her; but he never catch her till—now!”
While he spoke he was unconsciously chafing the bare arms which the
loose-fitting sleeves revealed, and all at once he started to his feet,
and gazed with all the Indian superstition in his dark eye, upon the
girl.
The eyes had opened and closed with a dreaminess not of earth.
A minute later and Dohma was at her side again.
“Silver Rifle live for Dohma!” he cried with joy. “She no dead, now. The
Great Spirit has heard the prayer of the young chief!”
Once more he fell to the work of restoring the girl to consciousness
with renewed vigor, and at last found her staring into his swarthy face.
For several moments she seemed to be recalling certain reminiscences of
the past, and then, all at once, she rose to her feet, and deliberately
picked up her silver rifle.
“Silver Rifle no shoot,” said the Indian, with a smile. “Powder all wet,
flints make fire, but won’t burn powder.”
She flung the rifle aside, and her hands dropped to her girdle.
“Knife gone, too,” said the Chippewa. “Silver Rifle no weapons.”
Then, like one in a dream, she moved to the Indian’s side, and stood
over him in silence. She had not fully recovered her senses.
“Silver Rifle come to Dohma?” he said, gently, taking her hand. “He find
her among fir, and bring her to cave.”
She did not resist, and the young savage drew her down to his side, and
looked lovingly into her eyes.
Slowly but surely her reason returned, and while the Chippewa was in the
midst of a recital of his hunt for her, a footstep sounded on the flinty
floor.
Quickly Dohma’s hand shot forward to his rifle, and wheeling as he
leaped to his feet, he confronted a huge Indian, a foot taller than
himself, and with the physique of a Hercules.
For a moment the two Chippewas faced each other amid dead silence, and
then Dohma extended his hand, which the giant griped as he glanced at
the girl.
“Silver Rifle and Dohma live in cave?” he said, with a sneer, which,
although scarcely perceptible, did not escape the young chief’s notice.
“Dohma find Silver Rifle dead by the big waters. But he bring her back
to the world,” was the calm rejoinder.
“Now what Dohma goin’ to do with Silver Rifle?”
“Teach her to love him!”
The giant bit his nether lip.
“Dohma is a Chippewa, so is Renadah,” he said, after a minute’s angry
silence. “Dohma is brave, but his aim is not so long as his big red
brother’s.”
“But it is as strong!” retorted Dohma, with determination, and as he
spoke he calmly stepped between Silver Rifle and the tall chief.
“Dohma is a young fir; Renadah is the great oak that grows in the big
woods. He could crush Dohma with one limb.”
“Let him try it!”
“He would not harm his red brother. Our great king, Pontiac, needs brave
red-men now; but Dohma, if he would help exterminate the hated English,
must do one thing.”
The young Indian did not speak, but noted the glance which Renadah threw
over his shoulder at Silver Rifle.
“He must give to Renadah the woman he loves!”
Dohma heard a low cry of horror part a pair of pale lips, and caught a
glimpse of Silver Rifle as she recovered her weapon.
“Dohma will not give Silver Rifle to Renadah,” he said, calmly. “He
found her dead and brought her spirit back from Manitou-land—so, she is
_his_!”
“She is Renadah’s! The wildcat of the Chippewas saw her before Dohma
knew that she was near Gitche Gumee.”
“Renadah lies!”
A cry of rage parted the tall chief’s lips, and he strode forward as his
smaller enemy retreated with drawn tomahawk.
“Renadah, Silver Rifle can belong to but one of us,” said Dohma. “We
will fight for her!”
“So be it!” cried Renadah, contemptuously. “Back beyond the fire, Silver
Rifle, touch the wall and be a stone there. Dohma and Renadah fight for
you.”
Without a word the girl hurried to the wall of the cavern, and surveyed
the red duelists.
On either side of the fire they stood with ready weapons, and at a
signal from Renadah the tomahawks were uplifted.
A second signal quickly followed, and the hatchets went crashing through
the air like thunderbolts.
Silver Rifle saw Dohma’s tomahawk miss his enemy’s head by an inch, and
a wild shriek that quickly followed, told her that the giant’s aim had
been truer.
Dohma threw up his arms, and while he spun round like a top, his
antagonist shot toward him with a cry of triumph!
The single spectator sprung from the wall, and, rifle in hand, darted
toward the mouth of the corridor.
But Renadah saw the movement, and, relinquishing his victim, turned and
pursued.
A few bounds brought him near the girl, whose limbs were bruised by the
rocks against which the waves had hurled her unconscious body, and
suddenly, still in the firelight, she stopped.
She saw the giant form that swooped down upon her, and as the red arm
leaped forward to claim the prize which it had just won, she struck with
the butt of her rifle!
“Coocha!” shrieked Renadah, recoiling from the blow, which had driven
the flint to the bone of his arm. “Silver Rifle—”
The girl’s action broke the sentence, and he threw up his arm again to
ward off the second stroke.
But the shield was useless, for Silver Rifle seemed to spring into the
air as she dealt the blow, and with a cry closely allied to a
death-groan, Renadah staggered back and dropped beside his victim!
“Free again!” said the victor, surveying the work of rifle and hatchet.
“Little did Dohma think that he was bearing me to my stronghold when he
brought me hither! Noble red youth, you saved my life to-day; would to
heaven I could have saved yours! The giant must have seen me borne home,
and so he followed. Dangers thicken fast—dangers and love,” and a smile
played with her lips. “I did not seek this wild land for
lovers—especially red ones. No, I came hither to find a father, or a
ring that will tell me much. Silver Rifle, the Girl Trailer, will find
the ring! The White Tiger of the lakes wears it on his hand, and she has
commanded him to give it to its owner. He shall comply or die!”
With the last word a sound startled her, and she glanced toward the
savages.
Dohma was sitting bolt upright!
The girl darted forward.
“Dohma, our fates are inseparable,” she cried, washing the blood from
his face. “Heaven tells me they are. Together we will hunt the White
Tiger and find the ring.”
The Indian smiled, and looked up into Silver Rifle’s face inquiringly.
“Silver Rifle lose ring?”
“Yes,” eagerly, anxiously.
“Yellow ring with pretty stone?”
“Yes, Dohma. You know something about it!” almost shrieked the girl.
“Dohma find ring in big wood just ’fore he find Silver Rifle; but he no
put it on his finger. See there, pale girl?” and with the question, the
Indian held up his left hand, the third finger of which was missing.
“Dohma find ring once, put it on finger. Ring no come off when white
trader want it, so chief cut off Dohma’s finger to get ring. When Dohma
saw pretty ring in woods, he said bad word, an’ let it lay.”
Silver Rifle groaned.
“Could you find it again?” she cried, eagerly.
“Dohma go right to it. It near two big oaks, close to Gitche Gumee.”
“Then we’ll find it!” cried the girl. “Soon I will know who I am; soon
I’ll lift the vail of mystery that enwraps my birth. How came the ring
in the forest? Have the Indians killed the White Tiger? or did he drop
the ring?”
“White Tigers live,” said the Indian.
“There is but one, Dohma.”
“Dohma saw two White Tigers last dark. One was not white like his
brother.”
“The youth’s mind is wandering,” mused Silver Rifle. “There is but one
White Tiger, and he is a half-breed.”
“Half-breed and White Tiger dress alike. Make Indians think there is but
one,” said Dohma, who had caught Silver Rifle’s last words. “But,” and
he raised his hand to the frightful wound inflicted by his rival’s
tomahawk, “Renadah struck deep. Dohma feel sick now. Hatchets bad
medicine.”
The girl saw an ashy pallor sweep over the Chippewa’s face, and reached
forth her hands to support him. But he eluded them, and fell backward
with a groan.
“Oh, heavens! is he dead?” she cried; “and has the secret of the ring’s
hiding-place died with him?”
With pallid face she leant over the youth, and raised his head, which
seemed to her a lump of iron ore.
“Dead—dead!” she groaned. “The trail which seemed ending grows longer
than ever now. ‘Near two oaks, by the lake,’ he said. There lies the
mystery-prisoning ring. I’ll hunt it till I die! I’ll tear it from the
hands of the chief in the midst of his people, if I encounter it there.
Heaven give me strength to meet the dangers which are to come!”
CHAPTER V.
SILVER RIFLE AMONG HER FOES.
There was no denying the fact—Dohma, the Chippewa, was dead. At least
the girl would have sworn he was.
Silver Rifle held his head in her lap a long time before she gave him
up.
She did not want to lose the young Indian when she needed him most, and
now that he was gone, she feared that she would never find the ring.
“I’ll bury the foes side by side,” she murmured, relinquishing the heavy
head, and approaching the fire. “They’ll not quarrel about me in the
grave, I hope.”
She supplied herself with a torch from the fire, and moved to a spot
some distance beyond the dead Indians, where earth instead of stone
formed the floor of the cavern.
Selecting a long and sharp piece of slate, she digged or scooped out a
large grave, and with Herculean strength dragged the two savages from
the light. Tenderly she wrapped Dohma in a blanket, and placed him
beside the furious chief who had sent him to the hunting-grounds of his
people.
“I’m going to rest awhile, now,” she said, in a long-drawn breath, after
finishing the work of burial, “and then I’m going into the woods again.
Dohma was mistaken. But one White Tiger lives; there can not be another.
I saw him on the lake one night, and since, I have seen him in the
woods. He is a half-breed, too. If I meet him, he must pay for losing
the ring, for undoubtedly the bauble which poor Dohma found in the
forest was mine.”
When the sun sunk behind Chapel Rock and the shadows of night swept over
lake and forest, Silver Rifle glided from the cave.
At the mouth of the entrance she found a strange boat, which belonged to
Renadah, who had fallen before her arm. Doubtless he was on the water
when Dohma bore his prize to the cave, and had followed in his canoe.
Quietly she stepped into the boat and sent it flying through the rocky
gateways out into the calmer waters.
She coasted toward Chapel Rock, which she sounded, and presently, having
scaled the cliff at a feasible point, found herself in the forest above.
The canoe had been hidden among the fallen firs on the beach, and was
secure from savage prowlers’ eyes.
The moon was giving tokens of an early visit to the nocturnal heavens,
as Silver Rifle darted into the dangerous wood, apparently having some
objective point in view.
She knew where two gigantic oaks grew side by side, and to this
particular spot she was hastening.
The rising moon found her hurrying along the cliffs, and after
traversing several miles, she suddenly wheeled to the left and advanced
with caution.
Once or twice she stopped among the ghostly shadows, for the cry of a
night-bird had greeted her ears, and she quite naturally associated the
sound with the presence of enemies.
But no answering signals were heard, and she advanced again until she
stood beneath the boughs of the trees she had sought.
Surely these were the two oaks mentioned by Dohma; they were the only
two which stood together near the lake-shore.
“The ring will greet me with its glitter,” she muttered, searching
around the trunks of the trees, and gradually describing larger circles,
which drew her nearer the edge of the cliffs.
A pale moonlight flooded the ground, and more than once Silver Rifle was
momentarily deceived by the glitter of lake pebbles, which by divers
means had found their way into the forest, so far above their rocky bed.
“These are not the oaks!” she said at last, in despair, as she suddenly
paused in her search. “Dohma meant other trees than these. And— Ha! what
is yon dark object, and did it not move?”
Quickly her rifle dropped from her left arm, and the flint was gently
drawn back, while her eye remained riveted upon the object which had
startled her.
As she looked, the shape grew into the figure of a beast, and she at
length concluded that it was dead. So she moved forward, and at length
stood over the body of the panther which had wounded Ahdeek’s shoulder
with his sharp teeth. She saw evidences of a struggle on the earth about
the dead beast, and discovered that white and red had met there at no
remote hour.
The discovery somewhat startled the girl, and as she rose to her feet,
the cry of the night-hawk sounded terribly distinct in her ears. It
seemed to emanate from a spot not twenty feet to her right. Slowly but
deliberately she turned toward the spot, and the next instant several
dark forms leaped from behind trees, and advanced upon her!
“Keep off, red-men!” she cried. “I have as yet spilled but little
Chippewa blood, for I trail not your people. Stand off, I say, else
there be—”
Her sentence was cut short by a shriek, for she found herself in the
grasp of a stalwart savage who had approached her from the rear, while
the trio engaged her attention in front.
“White girl no shoot Chippewa now,” laughed her captor, and presently
Silver Rifle found herself standing in the midst of a war-party,
hideously disfigured by paint. “White girl same as Dohma hunt,” quickly
continued the chief. “Dohma tell Oagla he love girl whom he call Silver
Rifle. White girl see Dohma?”
The girl shook her head, and the savages laughed.
“Dohma come home by um by an’ find Silver Rifle in Chippewa lodge.”
“Alas!” thought the girl, “Dohma would never return to his people.”
“Pale girl got pretty rifle,” said a tall young Indian, who wore a
head-dress of hawk-feathers. “She have heap silver in her lodge. Let
Hawkeye see rifle.”
With the last word the Chippewa put forth his hand, when, with a
startling cry, the girl started violently back.
Something glittered in the moonlight on Hawkeye’s tiniest finger.
“What frighten pale girl?” demanded the chief, not wholly unfrightened
himself.
“My ring! my ring!” cried Silver Rifle, starting forward. “Hawkeye,
you’ve got my ring! Give it here!”
She pointed to the ring as she spoke; but the savage drew back, with an
Indian oath.
“Ring Hawkeye’s,” he cried. “Him find it here by dead panther. Sequesta
grabbed ring when Hawkeye saw it; so they fought for it, and Sequesta
sleeps in Gitche Gumee. Girl shan’t have ring. It’s Hawkeye’s. Too
pretty for Silver Rifle.”
“Then the price I shall pay for my own property shall be your blood!”
cried the determined girl. “The glitter of that ring has drawn me from
the white man’s greatest city. I will have it, and, for the last time, I
demand it. Take it from your finger, Hawkeye!”
“Hawkeye keep ring,” was the determined response, and it still quivered
his lips when the girl’s rifle cleared a space about her.
The savages saw they had a demoness to deal with, and admired her
bravery as they shrunk from the clubbed rifle. She was but a girl—a
young tigress in nature, among twenty braves, and they would humor her
as the cat does the mouse.
All at once the butt of the weapon dropped to her shoulder, and the next
instant a sharp report shot over the cliffs.
Hawkeye, with a groan, reeled in the throes of death, like a drunken
man.
Through the smoke, which obscured her form, the brave huntress sprung,
and, before the savages could recover from their surprise, she had
wrenched the ring from the warrior’s finger, and was flying through the
forest like a deer!
Hawkeye was dead. The little ring, which was to be the price of more
than one life, had ended his days of savage glory, and the slayer was
seeking safety in flight.
The eldest members of the war-party, recovering first, had started in
pursuit, and the younger were not far in their rear. Once or twice they
paused and tried to bring the girl down with the rifle; but she flitted
in and out among the trees so as to destroy their aim.
One hand griped her silver rifle, the other held the ring, and more than
once she shut the member tighter than ever to satisfy her heart that the
prize was still her own.
She ran toward the spot where she had left Renadah’s boat, and at length
disappeared in the rugged path that led down to the lake shore.
For some time she had not heard the footsteps of her pursuers, and,
after hiding an hour among the rocks, she approached the beach. Quickly
she drew the light craft from its hiding-place, and as she placed it in
the water the click of a rifle-lock sounded above her head.
With a cry of horror she dropped the oar, and griped her rifle.
Half way up the path she saw a tufted head, and caught the glitter of a
rifle-barrel before a jet of fire dazed her eyes.
A second later she lay motionless beside the boat, and the air resounded
with yells of fiendish triumph.
Down the rugged path they came, and the foremost lifted Silver Rifle
from the ground.
“Ball cut girl’s head!” he cried; “but,” looking up with eyes beaming
with devilish satisfaction, “she no dead.”
The Indians crowded round with “ughs” of surprise.
“Silver Rifle no dead,” continued the warrior, “She live to die among
the squaws. Oagla take ring. Him wear it now.”
At first Oagla’s hand shrunk from contact with the ring.
He thought of Hawkeye lying dead in the forest; but when he saw smiles
of derision, with looks of covetousness, all about him, he took the
ring, and dropped it into his medicine bag.
“Now, braves, back to the war-path!” he cried. “Omaha carry Silver
Rifle. Oagla glad he did not kill her now. See that she does not escape;
if she does, Omaha steps upon the death-trail.”
Then the band ascended to the forest again, Omaha, the giant, bearing
the still unconscious girl in his arms, as though she were a babe.
In single file, through the ghostly forest, the Indians advanced, and by
and by the body of Hawkeye was added to the train.
“Tell me where I am!” suddenly cried the captive, startling every Indian
with her voice. “I recollect the boat, the red-skin on the cliff, then—
Oh, heavens, am I really in the clutches of the fiends?”
“Silver Rifle in Omaha’s arms,” said the jailer, with a faint smile.
“Indian shoot when girl go to get in boat.”
“And the ring! Where is that ring, chief?”
Omaha looked up and encountered Oagla’s eye.
“Ring in Gitche Gumee,” he answered. “It lost forever now.”
“Omaha lies!” boldly cried the Girl Trailer. “I saw the look your chief
shot at you. He has the ring, and unless he gives it back to me he shall
fall as Hawkeye fell.”
“Pale girl shoot Injuns no more,” was the response. “She die when she
git to Chippewa’s lodge.”
“We’ll talk more of dying when we get there,” said Silver Rifle.
“Fortune—”
Oagla suddenly turned toward the band, with uplifted hand, which broke
the captive’s sentence.
Instantly every savage seemed to grow into a dusky statue.
From a spot quite a distance to the right, faint cries emanated, and the
forest was tinged with a light that indicated a fire.
The savages remained silent for several moments, when Oagla started
toward the spot.
“The Chippewas hold a prisoner,” he cried. “We will see him burn and
hear his death-song.”
Obedient to their chieftain’s words, the savages started forward, and
presently gained the summit of a wooded knoll which overlooked the
torture-glen.
This spot was distant several miles from the Chippewa village, and had
witnessed some of the most fiendish tortures ever inflicted by savage
hands. When an enemy fell into the hands of the young braves, he was
brought hither and tortured, and more than once they had spirited
captives from the village and burned them here.
The war-party saw a white man lashed to a tree near the foot of the
hill.
The flames were leaping at his throat with the ferocity of famished
wolves, and he was boasting of fierce, vengeful triumphs over the
kindred of his torturers.
“Ahdeek burns, but the White Tiger will avenge him!” cried the captive.
The savages on the hill looked into each others’ faces in surprise.
“He is the White Tiger,” said Oagla, “and yet he says he is not.”
Omaha was puzzled, and Nahma’s words rushed over Silver Rifle’s
mind—“There be two White Tigers!”
Now she thought he spoke truly. Here was one; where was the other?
Her thoughts were broken by a wild cry, sent simultaneously from fifty
throats.
The captive had leaped from the stake, kicked the firebrands into the
faces of his torturers, and was running for life through the funereal
recesses of the woods.
During his narration of daring deeds, he had been tugging at his cords,
and success had crowned his efforts.
With yells of dismay and vengeance, the Indians gave chase, and Oagla’s
braves joined them with cries at once understood.
Suddenly Silver Rifle, who had witnessed the change of fortune with a
smile, jerked the jaunty mink-skin cap from her head, and waving it
aloft, sent a hearty cheer of encouragement after the fugitive.
“God help the brave fellow!” she cried. “Chippewas, he’ll pay your young
demons for this night’s work! And I’ll help him if we ever meet.”
The next moment Oagla stepped before her with a cry of hatred, and she
went to the earth beneath his clenched hand.
He paid dearly in the future for that blow.
CHAPTER VI.
DEMANDING THE DEAD.
“Well, they’ve got Doc Cromer cornered at last. He fooled ’em completely
when they pounced down upon his shanty like buzzards, an’ he’s goin’ to
try an’ fool ’em ag’in. Boy, them red devils war watchin’ the cave, an’
when they saw me, they couldn’t hold ’emselves longer, so erbout twenty
let drive ter once, an’ I felt a sting in my leg. Jehu! how I sent the
boat through the water then, and of course they follered. I didn’t
’spect to find both you chaps to home, fur I thought the half-breed was
still off on the powder errand.”
“He returned a few hours prior to our fight. I saved his life in the
woods, and broke an oath by such action.”
“How, boy?”
“I had sworn to Ahdeek that I would never appear to the Indians while
they saw him. You see, Doc, I never had any great grudge against the
reds, but Ahdeek is avenging the death of somebody—he won’t tell me who.
True, the greasers have bothered my traps, and that set me against them,
and the boy made me swear that I would assist him to avenge the death of
that mysterious personage, also, as I have further said. The Indians
know that _I_, and not Ahdeek, am the real White Tiger. I told them so
when I saved the boy’s life. Doc, among the murdered traders I possessed
many staunch friends, and if I ever escape from this difficulty, those
brave fellows shall be remembered when I strike.”
Doc Cromer spoke quickly.
“And are we to die here?” he asked.
“I trust not.”
“Say ‘No,’ boy.”
“_No!_”
The trader rose to his feet.
“Dorsey, something’s going on among the young braves,” he said. “They’ve
been hobnobing in groups for several hours, and p’r’aps they want to
take one of us three down to the hollow.”
“Should they take us, we’ll escape, Doc.”
“Yes, but we’ll not be taken. Our guards are old fellows, and the young
Chips will not interfere with them. Ahdeek’s guards are young larks, and
mind I tell you, if they take anybody ’twill be the dark boy. For that
reason they separated us; the old warriors knew that the young ’uns
would want a victim, an’ so they set Ahdeek aside for them.”
“They won’t kill the boy,” said the White Tiger, confidently. “He’ll
elude the red devils.”
“Yes, he’s too much for ’em. Dorsey Webb, I’m the last of the traders,”
and the speaker ground his teeth till the guards, attracted by the
grating sound, moved nearer the wigwam and listened.
After the battle in the White Tiger’s cave, the three captives were
conveyed to the Chippewa village, and thrust into wigwams which were
strongly guarded.
Nothing definite concerning their fate had been revealed. The Indians
were reticent; but their lowering looks and the clamorings of the squaws
foretold a dark future.
Cromer’s wound had been rudely dressed by a Chippewa doctor, and he felt
much relieved while they conversed in their prison.
“It must be near day,” said the trader, after a long pause, “for it
looks so dark out. The village is asleep.”
“Do the guards slumber?” questioned the White Tiger in a whisper.
“Not much!” said Cromer, lightly. “When you catch a Chippewa asleep when
he’s entertaining such visitors like ourselves, you’ll see it rain
scalps. Now it’s getting lighter we’ll soon learn if they took Ahdeek
out last night.”
With the dawn of day excitement entered the village. Old warriors were
seen conversing excitedly, and a strange, knowing smile played with the
lips of the younger ones.
“I told you so,” said Doc Cromer, turning from a crack to young Webb,
who reclined on a couch of wolf-skins. “They took Ahdeek last night.”
The White Tiger sprung to his feet, a painful expression crossing his
face.
“Did they kill him?”
“Don’t know; the torturers haven’t come back. Some suspicious old
greaser has just discovered the boy’s empty lodge.”
“Curse the fiends!” grated the Tiger. “Ahdeek was the best friend I had
in the world. I loved him as a brother and—here, Doc, untie my hands and
let me gripe a knife. By Heaven! I’ll make a red pathway through this
accursed den of devils for last night’s work.”
“Don’t do it, boy,” answered the trader, quietly and with a smile. “My
hands are in a delicate situation, too. S’pose we ask one o’ the guards
to cut us loose.”
The youth bit his lip and threw himself down on the couch again. Then he
rolled over on his face and recalled the past, which he associated with
Ahdeek, and thought of the dark boy’s doom.
Several hours flitted over him in that position, while Doc Cromer
continued to peer through the crack upon the Indian village.
Suddenly a distant shout fell upon the latter’s ear, and he turned to
the boy.
“Boy, did you hear that?”
“No,” answered the Tiger, starting up. “If it was a cry, Doc, what did
it mean?”
“It war a cry, and it meant that a gang of Injuns is comin’ into town
with a captive.”
“A captive? Who can it be?”
“I’m puzzled,” said Doc. “The traders ar’ dead, an’ Injun don’t fight
Injun in this war. Come hyar an’ look through this crack. We’ll see
presently who’s comin’.”
The youth rose and moved to a crack below the one through which his
fellow-prisoner had been taking observations, and in silence they
watched for the returning band.
The great council-square of the village soon thronged with Indians of
both sexes and all ages, whose eyes were turned to the north, from which
direction the shout had emanated.
“There they come, down the hill,” whispered Cromer, as a dark body of
Indians descended a rise among the suburbs of the town. “They’ve got a
captive, but not Ahdeek.”
A few minutes later, the band joined their comrades in the “square,”
where the red ranks broke at a signal, and the gaze of the prisoners
fell upon Silver Rifle!
“The Spirit of the Lake!” cried the White Tiger, starting from his post.
“True, by hokey! Not much ghost there, boy. I wonder how they came to
catch ’er? Surely they won’t kill _her_—she’s too pretty. Some chief’ll
take her for his squaw.”
“Not if I can drive a knife to his heart!”
Cromer turned quickly upon the fiery speaker.
“You claim her, then!” he said, with a smile.
“No; but she sha’n’t be an Indian slave. I never met her with a word.
She knows I live, that is all, and she may see me die.”
“True as Gospel. But let the gal alone. Think of John Burton; he tried
to cheat an Ottawa out of a white gal, an’ got his everlastin’ fur his
trouble. Gals ar’ dangerous things—worse nor rattlesnakes to fool arter.
Therefore, let that white piece out thar alone.”
“Doc, I thank you always for advice, whether I take it or not. But see
how she faces the demons.”
“She’s grit, no doubt, but then she’s got to make the best of her
situation. I don’t care much for her, though I’d like to know what
they’ve done with Ahdeek.”
“Your curiosity and fear are no greater than mine, Doc,” answered the
Tiger. “But we’ll soon hear.”
The last words were called forth by the return of a guard, who had
evidently been sent to the crowd to learn something concerning the new
captive and the fate of the half-breed.
Doc Cromer, whose knowledge of the Chippewa language was quite
extensive, applied his ear to the crevice and listened.
“Where dark White Tiger?” asked one of the sentries.
“Dead,” was the reply. “He break from stake and run, but the young
braves catch him, bring him back and burn him.”
“Who Oagla catch?”
“Silver Rifle. She hunt for ring in big wood near Gitche Gumee, when
Chippewas slip up and catch her. Hawkeye wear ring gal lookin’ for, and
she killed him for it.”
Doc Cromer waited to hear no more, but turned quickly upon the boy, who
was waiting with painful anxiety and interest for him to speak.
“Ahdeek is dead,” he said, gently, and with a sigh. “And the girl has
killed the bravest of the Chippewa chiefs.”
“Then there’s but little hope for her.”
“Precious little,” was the reply. “She made a desperate attempt to get
the ring.”
“What do you know about the ring, Doc?”
“Nothing, only the girl war looking for it, when they surprised her.
Hawkeye had the ring, an’ she killed him to get it.”
“Then some Indian has it now?”
“I rather guess so.”
“Poor Ahdeek! he’ll never get to fulfill his vow. But”—in an
undertone—“I’ll fulfill it for him.”
“You’ll do what, boy?”
Dorsey Webb started and colored to the temples.
“Nothing!” he stammered.
“True as Gospel. But— Hello! what does this mean?”
The newly returned guard had thrown back the door of the prison wigwam,
and confronted the captives.
“Hondurah want pale-faces in big place,” he said. “Want to say much to
them.”
“Wal, lead on, an’ don’t stand hyar blabbin’. I’m anxious to hear what
Hondurah has to say.”
“Pale-face won’t talk so big when sun sleeps, mebbe.”
The trader made no reply; the Indian’s words had set him to thinking,
and, guarded by the warriors, the twain found themselves on the way to
the “square.”
Doc Cromer limped somewhat, on account of his wound, but the White Tiger
walked bravely erect at his side, with his eyes fixed upon the motley,
revengeful crowd that awaited him.
Suddenly he saw the captive girl turn toward him, and her gaze fastened
itself upon his face. A moment later she started back, with a light cry,
which he could not understand.
“There _are_ two White Tigers,” she said. “_He_ spoke the truth when
dying.”
Presently the red crowd admitted the whites to the circle in which
Silver Rifle stood, and Hondurah, a noble specimen of the North American
Indian, stepped forward, with folded arms.
“Hondurah will be brief,” he said, fastening his dark eyes upon the
young White Tiger, who, with head thrown back in lofty defiance, met his
look with unblanched cheek.
“Dohma and Renadah left their lodges five sleeps ago for the trail. They
were to return last sleep. White Tiger, where are the chiefs?”
“They never crossed my trail,” was the quick, but measured reply.
“Hondurah, if I slew Dohma and Renadah, I would not lie about it.
Neither was their blood upon my darker brother’s hands.”
Murmurs of incredulity ran round the red circle, which impulsively
contracted.
“White Tiger lies,” said the chief, slowly, but with rising indignation.
“A forked tongue will do him no good here. Let him speak the truth, or
die before yonder fiery Manitou sleeps below the waves of Gitche Gumee.”
“I have spoken the truth, red devils,” the boy hissed with such
bitterness that Doc Cromer stepped reprovingly toward him. “I will not
say there is blood on my hands, when there is none. Make the best of my
answer. I can die but once.”
Hondurah’s tomahawk shot from his girdle.
“White Tiger, you have killed many Chippewas,” he hissed. “We have
hunted you long, never dreaming that you were a twin. Your twin brother
is dead; the young braves stole him from the lodge last sleep, and
burned him in the forest. You may not tread the long trail to-day by
taking the forked tongue from your mouth and putting one in that is not
forked. Now Hondurah asks for the last time. Where are Dohma and
Renadah?”
“I don’t know!” shouted the youth. “If I possessed a knife, Hondurah,
you’d never call another white boy a liar!”
The sachem almost cracked his teeth with anger.
“Chiefs,” he cried, turning to several Indians who stood at his left,
“to the torture-tree with the pale liar. He shall not see the sun sleep.
When he burns he will tell where lie our stricken brothers. Hondurah has
spoken. Away.”
The chiefs had sprung forward to obey the mandate, when, with a great
bound, Silver Rifle threw herself between them and the doomed boy.
“Let Silver Rifle speak first!” she cried. “In the great cave near the
Manitou’s chapel, sleep Dohma and Renadah, side by side. They fought for
Silver Rifle—fought with tomahawks for the white girl. Dohma died, and
then Renadah fell beneath _this_ arm!”
She paused, and howls of rage broke from the savage band, and as
Hondurah sprung toward her, scores of scalping-knives and tomahawks
flashed in mid-air, and the click, click, click of rifle-locks resounded
on every side.
“The innocent,” she cried, “shall not suffer for the guilty! If the
blood of Dohma and Renadah demand a victim, I am here. But, ere I die,
let me clutch the ring that Oagla holds, for I would know who I am.”
The gaze of many flitted to Oagla, who thrust his hand into the
medicine-bag at his side.
For a moment he rummaged among the ocherous stones, and then withdrew
his fingers.
His face told a story.
The ring was gone!
“Villain!” cried Silver Rifle, “you’ve thrown it away! Oh if I could
live to pay you for that act!”
CHAPTER VIII.
AN UNEXPECTED DEATH-SHOT.
Silver Rifle turned suddenly upon the Destroyer.
“You have trailed with him who has carried the ring long,” she said, in
a tone of intense anxiety. “Can you not tell me who I am?”
“Alas,” was the reply. “I can not, girl. He kept his own secrets, and
they have died with him.”
A deep sigh escaped Silver Rifle’s lips, and a moment later the voice of
Hondurah attracted the attention of all.
“Oagla, where is the pale girl’s ring?” he demanded of the chief. “Let
her read life before she dies.”
“Ring bad,” answered Oagla, quailing with shame before the flashing eyes
of his stern sachem. “It kill Hawkeye. Oagla fear it kill him, so he
throw it among trees. He hate bad ring; Silver Rifle kill him for it,
mebbe.”
“Oagla is a coward!” thundered Hondurah, and the flash of his eyes
seemed to blast the look of the superstitious and fearful chief. “The
Chippewa who is afraid of a shining thing should break his gun and
become a squaw. Single out your best trailers now, Oagla, and before
to-morrow’s sleep place the ring in Hondurah’s hand, or be a chief no
longer among the warlike Chippewas. Hondurah has spoken!”
And, as he resumed his former position, the chief waived aside the
savages who had laid hands on the dauntless girl.
Murmurs of dissatisfaction now arose on every side, and the sachem’s eye
swept the multitude, as with folded arms he calmly listened to the
hoarse growlings of the storm.
“Hondurah is not a dog,” he cried at last. “The ring tells the white
girl who she is. She does not know, and she shall not die until she
knows whose child she is. When Oagla returns with the ring that talks,
then shall die the three pale-faces who have spilled Chippewas’ blood.
Peace, warriors; it will not be long. Does Oagla know where he threw the
shining talker?”
“Oagla does.”
“Then let him step upon the trail before he speaks again. Wildcat, back
to the prison-lodge with the White Tiger, and his mate. Silver Rifle
will dwell in Hondurah’s lodge, till the boughs are gathered in the
forest.”
While Hondurah spoke, Oagla was moving among the warriors, and presently
he left the concourse, followed by six athletic young braves, who were
numbered among the best trailers in the village.
The chief smarted under the reproof he had received from Hondurah, for
he walked thoughtfully at the head of his warriors, and appeared to be
devising a scheme which would bear fruit in the future.
“Silver Rifle learn to love Hondurah’s daughter,” said the chief, as he
approached his lodge with the captive of his nation. “She with squaws
now; but she come soon when she know that Silver Rifle goin’ to be her
bedfellow for one sleep.”
The young trailer was ushered into the sachem’s lodge, and seated
herself on a heap of skins, while Hondurah moved to the entrance, in
which he stood with folded arms.
Presently Silver Rifle heard him speak; then came the soft voice of
woman in reply, and Hondurah stepped back into the lodge leading a
beautiful Indian girl by the hand.
“Here Clearwater, Silver Rifle,” he said. “She keep you company now, for
Hondurah must go ’mong his chiefs.”
So, as Silver Rifle rose to greet the dazzling vision of aboriginal
loveliness, he parted the curtains and disappeared.
Silence reigned between the two girls for several moments.
The pale captive saw that sadness tugged at Clearwater’s heart-strings
and kept her silent.
“Why is Clearwater sad when the skies are so bright, and the birds sing
so beautifully?” asked our heroine.
The Indian girl looked up, and nestled closer to the bosom on which she
had laid her head.
“The light has left Clearwater’s heart,” she said, softly, sadly.
“Silver Rifle, he is dead.”
The last words struck a sad, sympathetic chord in our heroine’s heart,
and she echoed the words, mournfully—“He is dead!”
“They killed him in the big woods,” continued Hondurah’s daughter. “The
mad young braves, headed by Omaha, took him from the prison-lodge last
sleep, and put fire about him.”
Silver Rifle started.
Was the girl referring to Ahdeek, the half-breed?
She would know.
“What was Ahdeek to Clearwater?”
“Her sunlight.”
“He slew her people.”
“But he loved Clearwater. He would kiss her in the aisles of the forest,
and they have sat by the shores of Gitche Gumee, when Hondurah hunted
for the White Tiger.”
“Did Clearwater know that there were two White Tigers?” asked Silver
Rifle.
“Ahdeek could keep nothing from Clearwater, he loved her so. He told her
that the ring was given him by an old man whose beard was white with the
snows of many winters, and that he was to take it to a white girl, who
lived beyond the big waters, when he had killed an Indian for every drop
of blood which they had spilled from the old pale face’s veins.”
“Is that all he told Clearwater?”
“Yes—no. Old white-beard have much yellow money, which he give to
trapper Snowbeard to keep, and papers with writing on, too, he said.
Indians kill Snowbeard, and burn down house; so yellow money and
talking-papers all gone!”
Silver Rifle sighed.
“Did pale girl see Indians burn Ahdeek?” asked Clearwater, suddenly
looking up into her face.
“No. I saw him escape; but Oagla struck me when I cheered the brave
fellow on, and when I opened my eyes again we were near the village. So
they must have recaptured Ahdeek, and burned him, while I was
unconscious.”
Clearwater’s head dropped upon her bosom, and the Girl Trailer heard her
murmur away down in her heart:
“Poor, poor Ahdeek!”
“Clearwater, will Oagla find the ring?” asked Silver Rifle, rousing the
Indian girl from her reverie.
“Oagla see like eagle, his braves like hawks,” was the response; “but
ring hard to find in big woods. Clearwater hate all young braves now.
Omaha never call her squaw. He know she love Ahdeek, and he thought he
would kill him; then Clearwater must turn to him. But he miss mark very
far. He better not cross Clearwater’s path in the forest; she always
carry rifle on her shoulder.”
The white teeth met with vengeance over the last words, and Silver Rifle
looked proudly down upon the loveless girl.
“Silver Rifle have to tell Indians that Nahma and Renadah died by her
hand,” said Clearwater, after a long pause.
“Why, sister?”
“That right. Clearwater and Silver Rifle sisters now. She have to save
one who was nothing to her.”
A blush mantled the white girl’s cheeks.
“Ha!” cried Clearwater, smiling, “Hondurah’s child speak wrong. White
Tiger is something to Silver Rifle.”
“Girl, I never talked with him until this day.”
Quickly Clearwater placed her hand on Silver Rifle’s breast, and with a
curious face looked up as she felt the pulsations of the heart.
“Heart beat fast when Clearwater talk of White Tiger,” said the Indian
girl. “Silver Rifle shall not die when Oagla come back.”
“Who can save me, girl?”
“Silver Rifle shall not die when Oagla come back,” repeated the girl,
with emphasis.
“Shall _he_ die, then?”
“Silver Rifle see,” and, with sudden impulse, the chief’s daughter
sprung from the cot, and stepped to the door. She parted the curtains,
and stood face to face with her father.
“Young braves talking bad talk in their lodges,” said Hondurah, as he
entered his own wigwam. “But they won’t take prisoners to the hollow
to-night. Hondurah stand by strong lodge himself, and Yucata with his
old braves and Clearwater guard Silver Rifle.”
The Indian girl crept back to the captive’s couch and whispered:
“Clearwater shoot mad buck when he was driving his horns through
Tucata.”
* * * * * * *
“Oagla throw ring somewhere here. He see big oak there, when he throw
ring into medicine-bag and pulled out the yellow talker. Braves,
separate now, and look sharp. Let your eyes rival the hawk’s, and do not
leave an inch of ground unsearched. Oagla must find ring, or—or—” He
turned abruptly, and finished the sentence in a whisper: “Or Hondurah
steps upon the death-trail. Oagla will never submit to having his
feathers torn from his head!”
The party of discovery had reached a portion of the forest which the
captors of Silver Rifle, led, as the reader has seen, by Oagla, had
traversed a few hours before. The trees stood in profusion here and to
some extent lent a gloomy coloring to the ground.
Oagla had concluded that hereabouts he had tossed aside the mysterious
ring, without the knowledge of Silver Rifle, never expecting that he
would be compelled to hunt for it, with a disgraceful reward promised
for non-success.
He had a presentiment that the ring boded him no good, for he had
witnessed the fate of Hawkeye, and, to dissipate such thoughts, he had
rid himself of the bauble in a summary manner.
The party reached the spot I have briefly described about high noon, and
until four o’clock they scoured the ground in vain for the missing ring.
“Wait till the pale queen shines,” said Oagla, suddenly pausing. “Then
the little talker will be bright, and the Chippewa can find him easily.”
So the hunt was suspended, and the savages waited for the rising of the
moon, which was full and scaled the horizon quite early.
Shadow after shadow gathered among the trees, and the ring-hunters
hailed the first approach of the moon with great joy. Her silvery beams
dissipated the shadows, and streaming down through the leafy boughs,
clothed the ground in a weird light.
Freshened by their rest, the Indians sprung with alacrity to the hunt
again, which had scarcely been inaugurated when Omaha darted to the foot
of a stunted fir, and stooped, with a wild cry of delight.
Raising quickly, he turned, and something glittered in his upraised
hand.
It was the ring!
The Chippewas darted toward him with joyful shouts, and soon Omaha stood
in the center of the wild band.
“Now!” cried Oagla, “warriors, back to your lodges. Omaha give Oagla the
little talker. He not throw it away now. He—”
The sharp crack of a rifle benumbed every sense, and Omaha reeled from
Oagla, whose hand was outstretched to grasp the ring!
And as he reeled, a death-yell pealed from his lips.
Then there was a quick step, a dark figure dashed through the red ranks,
jerked the bauble from Omaha’s dead fingers, and was away like a rocket!
All this occupied but a single minute, and when the savages recovered
their self-possession, they were staring into each other’s faces.
“Swear!” cried Oagla, in thunder tones, “swear, warriors, that in the
village of your people, you will never speak the name of Omaha’s slayer!
Swear that you will never breathe it to the old warriors.”
In the ghastly moonlight, and by the name of their Great Spirit, the
Indians swore.
“It is well,” said Oagla. “The little talker is gone. Warriors, to your
lodges!”
Then, biting his lips with disappointment, he threw himself before his
braves and turned his face toward the south.
The ring had fallen into the hands of one entirely unlooked for!
CHAPTER VIII.
ESCAPING.
Oagla’s band reached the Indian village about nine at night.
They placed the corpse of Omaha on a mat in the center of the
council-house, and when the population of the town swarmed about it with
vengeful looks and mutterings, the chief rose and addressed the
assemblage.
He said that a great night bird, with sharp eyes, had darted from a tree
and seized the ring as he was about to pick it up, and that they had
followed the feathered thief through the woods until he flew toward the
lake, and thus they lost sight of him. Omaha was shot, he said, by an
unseen foe, of whose person they were unable to get a single glimpse.
All this, as the reader knows, was a cunning lie. The elder warriors
drank it in with great credulity, for Oagla was noted for veracity; but
the younger braves whispered to one another, and glanced with faint
smiles at the red speaker.
Probably a trader, who had escaped the late massacre, was the slayer, as
Oagla suggested, and Hondurah swore to hunt the avenger down.
The gathering broke up with the decision that the white trio should be
tortured during the coming day, and a few Indians remained to wrap Omaha
in his blankets and bury him.
The young men had promised that the captives should not be disturbed
during the night; but Hondurah, who had seen so many like promises
broken, smiled knowingly as he shook his feathered head, and stationed
the guards as he had previously designated.
Silver Rifle saw six dark forms encircle her lodge, and heard Hondurah
tell them that their lives would be taken by his hatchet if she escaped.
Sternly the war-tiger of the Chippewas spoke to his daughter; he loved
her, he said, but despite the affection she might have for the Girl
Trailer, if she assisted her to evade the stake, he would give her, his
only child, over to the vengeance of his people.
The interior of the chieftain’s lodge was clothed in Cimmerian darkness.
Clearwater said that Silver Rifle wanted to sleep, and dream for the
last time of the birds and flowers that sung and grew beyond the straits
of Gitche Gumee.
Several hours passed away, and nothing came to disturb the Indian
village. Even the noisy dogs were silent; but Clearwater sat before her
father’s lodge, and conversed in low tones with Yucata.
That she had broached a subject which was quite unpleasant to the old
commander of the guards, was noticeable in his countenance, and many
times he slowly shook his head while she talked with her lips close to
his ear.
“Yucata owes Clearwater a life,” said the old Indian, in a low tone;
“but he can not meet Hondurah in the light, and say ‘Silver Rifle
outwitted him.’ No, no!”
“Then let Yucata go, too; Pontiac fights the English at Detroit; let him
join his king, and fall, if he falls at all, with his face to the
red-coats.”
“Yucata will do as Clearwater has said,” said the Indian, suddenly
starting forward. “Now, let her go to her work.”
Quickly Clearwater sprung to her feet and re-entered the lodge, from
which, half an hour later, she emerged and walked rapidly away.
When she had disappeared, Yucata summoned his sub-alterns to his side,
and composedly lit his pipe.
“The white girl sleeps,” he said. “Clearwater has gone to weep over the
gave of Omaha, for whom her young heart bled.”
The savages seated themselves on the ground before the lodge, and Yucata
led them into an animated discussion of the war which was then raging.
The old chief seemed to advance strange ideas, for the sake of argument,
and so intently were the Indians engaged in their war-talk, that the
dark, girlish figure that glided through a long slit in the rear of the
lodge, walked away erect and unnoticed.
The savages continued to talk, and at last a sub-chief, who was relating
a story, suddenly paused in the midst of his narrative.
The hoot of an owl which emanated from the adjoining forest had caused
the interruption.
Yucata started and raised his head.
“’Tis something,” he whispered. “Yucata will see the eyes of that owl,”
and cautioning his braves to watch the lodge, but not to disturb the
occupant, he rose to his feet and hurried away.
Once beyond his companions, he walked faster than ever, and all at once
turned to the left and ran at the top of his speed. He soon reached the
last lodge that stood in the northern portion of the village, and waved
a farewell with his hand.
“Yucata traitor to Hondurah,” he said; “but Clearwater brought his oath
back, and he could not forget it. Yucata never come back here any more.”
Then he turned again, plunged into the wood, and was lost to view.
The owl-hoot meant much.
It told Yucata that he might fly from the lodge which had sheltered him
long, and that the cunning of one woman had outwitted the sharpest chief
of the Chippewa nation.
“Lead us to the lake, girl,” said a low, but strong voice. “Once there,
we’ll defy the sagacity and bravery of your people. I want to be loose
once more; I want to remind the scarlet fiends that they have tortured
Ahdeek.”
A sorrowful sigh escaped the lips of the figure that walked beside the
speaker, and she paused and touched his arm.
“Look up, White Tiger.”
He obeyed.
A single star glittered overhead, the others were obscured by clouds.
“That star, Ahdeek,” said a whispered voice. “He tells Clearwater not to
spare young braves. She spare ’em not.”
Four figures flitted through the darkness that enwrapped the Indian
village; they were Clearwater, Silver Rifle, the White Tiger, and Doc
Cromer, the trader.
Clearwater had led the trio to comparative freedom. Her cunning had
outwitted her own father, and, like Yucata’s braves, he guarded an empty
lodge. The hunters were not unprepared for rescue, for, during the day,
Clearwater, while talking to a dandyfied brave who guarded the lodge,
had managed to smuggle a piece of bark to the captives, upon which were
traced Indian characters which, from their acquaintance with savage
life, they easily deciphered.
By a stratagem Hondurah and his warriors were thrown off their guard,
for the old chief did not dream that his daughter would attempt
treachery before his very eyes, and presently the whites found
themselves free.
Noiselessly they left the hoodwinked Indians, and soon joined a single
figure, dressed like Clearwater. It was Silver Rifle.
Then the owl-hoot which drove Yucata away pealed from Clearwater’s
throat, and the quartette moved on.
One or two Indian dogs which came smelling about them were noiselessly
dispatched, and, as the party reached the summit of a knoll, and were
beginning to breathe freer, they came upon the burial of Omaha.
The best trail to the lake led by the Chippewa burying-ground, and the
night interment of the slain savage was unknown to the chief’s daughter.
Several torches threw their ghostly light upon the scene, and the
escaping party dropped to the earth which they hugged closely, and
watched the burial.
They were within thirty feet of the group, and held their breath while
the Indians lowered Omaha into his grave, incumbered, as he was, by his
rifles, hatchets, knives, and well-stocked medicine bag.
“We must go,” whispered Doc Cromer; “they will smoke over him, and
pow-wow an hour. Let us try the right. Tell the gal.”
The Destroyer spoke to Clearwater.
“We must crawl like the cat,” she said. “Clearwater would sooner wait
till the Indians go. But she will lead the pale faces to the right, on a
little trail covered with leaves.”
Slowly and painfully, then, the four vacated their position, and with
eyes fixed on the Indians, crawled down to the right. Fortune favored
them, however, and they were congratulating themselves, when the most
terrible adventure of the night occurred.
The party was suddenly brought to a halt by a low sign of danger from
Clearwater, who led the van.
They were crossing a spot of ground upon which dimly fell the light of
the funeral torches.
“What’s up?” whispered Doc Cromer, who covered the little band.
“Somebody’s abroad,” answered the young avenger. “We lie on the brink of
destruction now.”
The footsteps which had startled Clearwater’s acute ear came nearer, and
told that something was walking painfully slow.
It came from the north west, directly toward the breathless quartette,
who griped their knives with determination.
At last they saw the outlines of the night-hawk.
It was an Indian.
He was making for the torches of his scarlet brethren, and our imperiled
ones felt a sense of relief when they beheld him swerve to the right and
bid fair to miss them.
The brilliant eyes of the solitary red-man saw nothing but the tableau
over the grave; but he was soon called to another scene.
The eyes of Silver Rifle had been riveted upon him from the first, and
when his every feature became plainly visible, when he could have
touched her with his hand, a terrible cry rose from her lips, and she
leaped to her feet, looking like one who had suddenly encountered a
ghost.
The Indian stopped, and the next moment Doc Cromer, like a tiger, sprung
upon him.
The red-man was as a babe in the grip of the stout trader; but he
shrieked before the great brown hand closed over his mouth!
To the ground went white and red, and Silver Rifle leaped toward them as
the Indians turned from Omaha’s grave.
“My God! girl, what have you done?” cried the White Tiger, springing up
and cocking his rifle, as he glanced from their enemies at Silver Rifle.
She did not hear him, for she was trying to pull Doc Cromer from the
Chippewa.
“Don’t kill him, Doc,” she cried. “He saved me, and he’s—”
The trader sprung erect.
“I’ve choked the skeleton to death, I guess,” he said, looking down upon
the savage, who lay motionless at his feet. “What made you holler fur?”
He shot her a maddened look, as he put the question, not destined to be
answered then, and turned as two rifles cracked at his side. He saw a
brace of Indians drop in the woods, and then the remainder of the band
sprung to trees.
“We must run!” cried the White Tiger. “The whole village will be down
here in a minute.”
The next moment the quartette turned and dashed toward the lake, still
three miles distant.
“You’ve dropped one—I haven’t,” cried Cromer, pausing in his race for
life. “I must kill one greaser afore day, with the rifle. Choking
red-skins to death is no fun.”
He faced the pursuing savages, some fifteen in number, who, confident of
an easy capture, were following with torches through the thinly-timbered
wood, and threw his rifle to his shoulder.
“Quick, Doc, quick! We’re losing time!” cried the Destroyer.
“Hold a moment,” was the calm reply. “I want to bore a brain!”
Seemingly not realizing their danger, the rash trader took matters very
calmly, and, as his finger touched the trigger, Webb leaped forward with
a startling cry.
“A panther!”
As he shrieked the name of the beast, he hurled the trader aside,
completely spoiling his aim.
The next second a yellow body alighted on the spot where Cromer had
stood.
“Curse your yellow hide!” yelled the mad hunter, as with uplifted rifle
he bounded upon the animal. “I’ll teach you how to interfere with my
business.”
The rifle descended, the panther received the blow on his head, and
staggered back with an almost human groan.
With a glance at the Indians, the trader sprung over the stunned brute,
and rejoined his friends.
“Now for life!” said Webb. “This delay may prove dangerous.”
The words had scarcely left his lips when the forest resounded with
rifle-shots, and Clearwater dropped over a fallen sapling.
The Destroyer darted to her side and raised her up.
A stream of blood gushed from her mouth, and all at once she threw her
arms about his neck, completely depriving him of his balance. He went to
the ground beneath the wounded girl, and Doc Cromer and Silver Rifle
sprung to his aid.
The trader jerked the Indian loose, and then leaped forward, with an
oath.
The savages were upon them!
Boldly among the red demons sprung the trio, fighting with that
determination and despair of a person driven to the wall.
The trader had dropped two warriors, when a tomahawk, thrown by a young
brave, struck him in the head, and he dropped his rifle, as he sunk back
without a groan.
“Girl,” cried the White Tiger, who had witnessed the fall of the trader,
“we can but die; then let us fall in the run for life.”
Suddenly they whirled to the right, and parrying several blows,
furiously given, dashed through an opening, which they had made in the
red ranks, and darted toward the lake once more.
The Indians were surprised at this move, and for a moment could not
realize the unexpected state of affairs.
That moment proved of value to the fugitives; they had put many rods
between them and their foes, and after a chase which terminated near the
lake-shore, the latter returned bootless to the scene of battle.
Here they were greeted with mystery and horror. Their dead had been
scalped during the last pursuit; the body of Clearwater was missing, and
upon the giant tree at whose foot she had lain, was the dreaded mark of
the White Tiger, lately cut, with a bloody tomahawk!
The warriors gathered around the tree with bated breath, and stared at
the deeply cut double cross.
“Clearwater plays the White Tiger,” said a young brave, at length.
“Clearwater!” yelled a gray-haired chief, turning fiercely upon the
speaker. “Clearwater’s arm was weak, and the tomahawk went through the
bark. A man’s muscle drove the hatchet;” and then, raising his
thunderous voice to its highest pitch, he swept the young braves with a
finger of scorn. “Chopah knows all!” he cried. “The young warriors have
lied!”