THE VENGEANCE-HUNTER.
The occupants of the Pale Pawnee’s lodge awaited, with fear, anxiety
and impatience, his return. They had witnessed his departure with Red
Eagle, and they felt that something terrible was about to transpire.
Mr. Denison now knew that the renegade defied the American
Government, and he believed that it was Kenoagla’s intention to make
short work of him. He had heard of the cruelties of the Pawnees;
their treatment of the emigrant trains had reached the ears of
the authorities at Washington, and measures were being adopted to
chastise the red marauders and protect the trains. But the Government
was snail-like in its operations; and while it hesitated, while other
measures not so important as the lives of our emigrants retarded the
humane step, the Pawnee tomahawk was reeking with blood on the banks
of the Platte.
The Indians would submit when the iron hand of the Great Father at
Washington closed on them; but they would massacre so long as the
blue-coats kept out of sight. Train after train was halted by the
savage whoop; and the poor emigrants were suddenly called upon to
sell their scalps at the price of blood. Seldom mercy was shown, but
now and then some lovely girl was spared and carried to a dreadful
captivity, in the lair of the Pawnee or the giant Sioux.
The train in which Mr. Denison and the dear ones under his charge
had taken passage, was attacked near the banks of the Platte, ten
miles below the mouth of the Loup Fork. The force that bore down upon
the caravan was overwhelming--it could not be resisted. The train
was feeble in point of numbers--too feeble, in fact, to cross the
plains; but the men fought bravely for themselves and families. But
their bravery availed them naught, for the Indians were armed with
Government rifles and revolvers, which they could handle with deadly
effect.
Finally the defenders surrendered. Kenoagla--Tom Kyle--had promised
quarter, but he broke his word. He did not attempt to restrain his
red fiends; but he saved the lives of the Government agent and his
charges, while an inferior chief belonging to a Pawnee village
situated many miles toward the head of the Platte, succeeded in
rescuing the brace of white buffalo-hunters from the vengeance of the
tomahawk.
After the massacre the bands separated.
“Father, some dark work is brewing. The white Ogre of these beautiful
plains and his red ally are plotting mischief somewhere beneath the
stars. I fear your words have irritated him to a fearful degree.
I heard him grit his teeth when I rode by. I do not fear for
myself--no, no; but for you, father, for you!”
It was Mabel Denison who spoke, and in the darkness that reigned
throughout Tom Kyle’s lodge, the fearful girl crept nearer her
parent, and threw her arms about his neck.
“I have not thought once of myself, Mabel,” he answered, searching
for the pale cheeks, which his lips found, as he spoke her name. “I
have been thinking about you and Lina, there. He has saved you for a
purpose--he and his red ally.”
“But he shall not carry out his purpose!” returned Mabel, fiercely.
“I am not to be this Ogre’s wife; sooner than bear such relation to
him I would fly, if I could, to the brazen doors of perdition and
knock for admission there!”
“My fair lady will need wings ere long, then.”
The trio turned at the sound of the voice, and saw a dark form
between them and the stars.
Though the face of their visitor could not be seen, the great feather
that fell gracefully over his head, and the glitter of silver
ornaments on the shoulders of his serape, told them who he was. He
had parted the skins without noise, and no doubt had listened to much
of the conversation which had lately passed between his prisoners.
Mabel Denison uttered a light cry as she beheld the renegade; but her
father gritted his teeth in silence.
“I say you’ll need wings ere long, Miss Denison, if you intend
carrying out your resolve,” continued Tom Kyle, and a light chuckle
followed his last word. “Your father spoke truly when he said that I
spared you girls for a purpose. And I will inform him just now that
he, too, has been spared for a purpose, differing widely from the one
for which his child has been spared.”
He paused as if expecting Mr. Denison to speak; but, as no word fell
from the agent’s lips, he continued:
“Ladies, I must separate you.”
“No! no!” and Mabel threw herself upon her golden-haired cousin. “If
we are to remain your captives, let us, at least, enjoy, if we can,
our captivity together. Do not tear us apart; if you still retain
a spark of respect for womanly affection, you will change your
resolution.”
“I am not the sole arbiter of your fates,” the renegade replied. “I
have been compelled to divide the spoils of our last excursion. Mabel
Denison, you are mine; your cousin belongs to Red Eagle.”
A trembling cry parted Lina Aiken’s lips, and she sunk senseless into
Mabel’s lap.
“Sir, you are blighting the purest, the sweetest of lives!” cried the
agent’s daughter, forgetting the passions of the man who confronted
her. “Sir renegade, let me tell you, now, that I am not yours. I
loathe you, as I loathe the scaly folds of the serpent, and--”
“Girl,” and the word sounded like ice-drops falling on red-hot iron,
“I beg of you to desist. I am passionate--a word makes me a devil!”
“No, no! you have ever been such.”
The Spanish sword leaped from the gilded scabbard, and Tom Kyle
sprung forward with an oath.
“Girl, curse you! I can find a wife in the next train, or the Gold
Girl--”
His vengeful sentence was broken by the entrance of an Indian, and
the renegade found himself hurled to the furthest part of the lodge.
“Kenoagla would kill Gold Girl!” cried the new-comer, snatching Lina
Aiken from Mabel’s embrace. “Gold Girl belong to Red Eagle. Kenoagla
die if he touches her!”
“Leave me Lina, Red Eagle,” cried Mabel, springing to her feet, to be
met by the broad palm of the Pawnee chief.
“No, no, Gold Girl Red Eagle’s; dark girl Kenoagla’s. The sisters
meet often in Pawnee lodges. Gold Girl must go to chief’s wigwam; she
still sleeps.”
With a painful groan Mabel Denison sunk back and dropped into her
father’s arms.
At this juncture the renegade regained his feet, and came forward,
gritting his teeth with rage.
“Who, in the name of the furies--”
He paused suddenly when he found himself face to face with Red Eagle.
“Kenoagla let the storm rise in his heart. He sought Gold Girl’s
blood; but Red Eagle came, and he pushed Kenoagla.”
“I didn’t seek the Gold Girl; the dark one made me mad.”
“Then Red Eagle did wrong!”
“No, no, chief. I am glad you pushed me. I wouldn’t kill that girl
for the world now. All the venom she can fling can irritate me no
more. But I’m going to show her, in more senses than one, that she is
mine! mine! mine!”
He bent forward as he hissed the last words, and Mabel Denison felt
his hot breath scorch her pale cheek.
“Red Eagle, and his Gold Girl go now,” said the Pawnee, breaking the
silence that followed.
“Yes, go.”
The next instant the Indian turned on his heel, and hurried away with
the unconscious Gold Girl in his arms.
“I’m not going to disturb you with my presence longer to-night,” said
Tom Kyle, addressing his captives. “But I would bid you, before I go,
to prepare for another separation. Mr. Denison, you leave the Pawnee
village to-morrow.”
The agent and his child were silent.
“Did you ever read the story of Mazeppa?” the renegade asked, after a
long silence.
A low “My God, Mabel,” told the villain that that famous ride was not
unknown to his captive.
“So you have heard of that ride,” chuckled Tom Kyle. “Well, Mr.
Denison, to be brief, we’re going to make a Mazeppa out of you
to-morrow. I’ll have some of my fellows to lasso or crease a wild
horse, and perhaps the beast may bear you to Washington, where you
can lay your wrongs before the Government. So prepare for the ordeal,
I say.”
He stood a moment longer in the doorway, then turned abruptly on his
heel, with a fiendish laugh, and walked away.
“I’m going to see what Red Eagle is doing with the Gold Girl,” he
murmured, walking toward the chief’s lodge. “By heavens! she shall
not belong to him. I had marked her for my own long before the train
surrendered, and Tom Kyle can’t be balked by a red-skin. Let me
get her in my clutches once, and a buck-skin shall bear me to the
Apaches. I’ve been among them; they are ready to follow my white
plume. What a beautiful white queen the Gold Girl would make! Red
Eagle, she shan’t be yours long. I mean it, I swear it!”
A certain light now attracted the renegade’s attention, and his voice
ceased altogether. He walked more cautiously than ever, and at last
knell behind a wigwam, the build and decorations of which proclaimed
it the habitation of a chief.
He lay like a corpse on the ground, and his eyes, flashing like fire,
almost touched a crack, through which he was drinking in the scenes
that were transpiring in the lodge.
Red Eagle bent over Lina Aiken, who lay upon a couch of skins, pale
and motionless.
The red-man was watching her intently.
“Gold Girl sleep long,” the Indian murmured, and a look of fear sat
enthroned upon his anxious face. “The Pale Pawnee’s words chased
her near the dark river. He wants Gold Girl; he tried to cheat Red
Eagle to-night, but she shall never warm his couch. The Indians hate
him; they would give Red Eagle his plume, his serape, his sword;
but Red Eagle say, ‘not yet.’ But,” and a dark scowl overrode the
fearful expression, “let the Pale Pawnee touch Gold Girl and he get
this--this.”
Significantly, as if addressing some one, the chief touched the hilt
of his knife, and the silvered butt of “Colt,” then clenched his
hands and gritted his teeth till they cracked.
The passions that bubbled and hissed in the spectator’s heart cannot
be described, and once he drew his revolver and cocked it, and put it
up again.
“Curse you, Indian!” he hissed. “It’s diamond cut diamond now; you
won’t live ten days, I swear it, by my hopes of eternal life! and the
Pawnees shall be kingless before the expiration of that time.”
For several moments longer Red Eagle watched over his beautiful
captive, whose insensibility had created some alarm in the breast of
his arch-enemy, lying at the base of the wigwam, watching and biding
his time for revenge and success.
“Red Eagle go bring Medicine,” suddenly cried the chief, starting
to his feet. “Gold Girl sleeps too long. Red Eagle can’t wake her;
Medicine can.”
Then the Indian, after casting a long look upon the marble form on
the couch, walked from the lodge, and Tom Kyle heard him bounding
away toward the Pawnee doctor’s wigwam with the fleetness of the deer.
“Now I could rob him of his Gold Girl, and rob him effectually,”
ejaculated the renegade. “One blow could constitute my revenge; but
I would have to fly for my life, and leave my captives here. No, I
won’t do it. I will bide another time; then, if I can’t wed her, I
can strike.”
Again he turned his eyes to the crack, but started from the wigwam
with a low ejaculation of surprise.
The figure of a girl stood over Lina Aiken. It was Winnesaw. The
renegade recognized her in a moment, and he almost cried aloud when
his gaze dropped from her flashing eyes to the slender-bladed knife
that glittered in her right hand.
He saw, too, that the girl had just entered the lodge, and that the
beauty of Lina had riveted her, as it were, to the ground.
He gazed upon her, too horror-stricken to dissipate the striking
tableau!
Suddenly the Indian girl stooped over her rival; the passionate fire
vanished from her dark eyes, like mists from a morning sun, and the
light of love and pity supplied its place.
Nearer and nearer the red face approached Lina Aiken, and at last the
lips of the strange twain met.
“Poor Gold Girl!” the renegade heard Winnesaw murmur, as she slowly
raised her head. “Winnesaw came here to kill; but the Gold Girl is
too pretty for her knife.”
For an instant she knelt over Lina, admiring her unconscious form;
then the knife suddenly flew aloft again.
Tom Kyle, the watcher, started, and held his breath.
He saw the firm set lips of the Pawnee girl, by the light of the fire
in the center of the lodge; and he saw the glittering blade descend
like a bolt of lightning!
It grazed the Gold Girl’s head and severed a shining tress, which
rolled from the fox-skin pillow.
Winnesaw’s hand darted upon the severed lock, and the next moment it
was hidden away in her bosom.
Then the Indian started to her feet, and Lina Aiken was alone again.
Slowly her eyes unclosed, and with a look of bewilderment she rose to
a sitting posture and gazed about the apartment.
The sleep of insensibility had been broken, as it were, by the rape
of a lock.
The watcher hailed her recovery with an exclamation of joy, and,
simultaneously with the return of Red Eagle, accompanied by the
Pawnee Medicine, he was brought to his feet by a yell.
“The Platte Pawnees have entered the village!” he exclaimed. “What
can it mean?”
He bounded to the council square, and found a crowd of red-skins
swarming about several wild-looking men seated on jaded steeds.
In an instant his voice quieted the Bedlamic uproar.
The new-comers sprung erect on the backs of their horses, and in
thundering tones told the story of Frontier Shack’s victory on the
banks of the Platte.
A thousand yells of vengeance followed the narration.
“I must lead them,” muttered Tom Kyle. “That infernal trapper has
been too fresh of late; he hasn’t heeded my summons an accursed bit!”
Then he called for his horse: but a savage had anticipated the
command, and the renegade turned to find his steed at his side.
A few moments later two hundred Pawnees sat astride their horses.
At a motion from the renegade they sprung erect, uttered a thrilling
war-whoop, and then galloped from the village, shouting like demons,
standing like statues on the backs of their steeds.
The Pale Pawnee was ill at ease, and he bit his lips till they bled,
as he rode, like a fantastically-dressed circus performer, at the
head of his red band.
He felt that his reign was drawing to a close, and he was acting
through policy now.
“Curse that Indian!” he suddenly hissed, and, while the words still
quivered his lips, he heard his followers divide for the purpose of
allowing a horseman to gain the front.
A moment later that horseman joined the renegade.
It was Red Eagle.
“Red Eagle help punish the island pale-face, too,” said the chief.
“We catch and burn, or tie to wild horse, the beaver-catcher and the
pale boys.”
“Yes, yes, chief,” said Tom Kyle, but he added, under his breath,
“Mr. Red Eagle, you’ve seen the Gold Girl for the last time; that is,
if I can shoot straight enough to-morrow night, and, for ten years, I
haven’t missed a mark.”