THE BLOW FOR FREEDOM.
A half-hour passed, of intense anxiety to both girls. Then they
distinctly heard a noise again in the wigwam’s rear.
“Gold Feather is not able to take the girls out through the village.
The guard sleeps soundly. Go forth; take his gun, and if he wakes
not, make for the hills with soft steps. Gold Feather will guard the
way.”
Parting the curtains, she peered out, but clouds obscured the stars,
and the blackness of darkness brooded over the village like some
monster eagle. The guard sat beside the door, half-asleep as it
seemed, for his head had fallen between his knees, and his rifle lay
on the ground.
A moment later the curtains were drawn aside, and Lina stepped out
into the pure night air.
Mabel followed, and as she dropped the curtain she stooped to deprive
the guard of his gun.
Her slender hand clutched the barrel of the weapon; but the butt,
which she did not see, struck the Apache’s foot as she drew it toward
her, and starting from his sleep, fully awake in an instant, he
leaped to his feet.
Lina Aiken uttered a low cry of horror and sprung backward as the
rifle shot upward, held by hands which, though a woman’s, were nerved
with fearful determination.
The Apache took in the situation at a glance, and, without a cry, he
strode forward. He saw the clutched rifle, and perhaps he caught the
dark eye that fell upon him warningly, for he threw his hand up to
break the blow. But the girl was too quick for him; the butt of the
weapon struck his head with a dull thud, and he staggered toward the
lodge. Once he tried to recover, and had almost succeeded, when the
rifle descended again, and then he sunk to the earth like a stricken
bullock.
“Now, Lina!”
The girls joined hands in the darkness, and started for the
mountains. They had miles to travel before dawn, and the path to the
fastnesses were beset with dangers.
An unseen hand seemed to guide them, for they avoided the somber
lodges with an ease scarcely ever equaled, and had proceeded to the
suburbs of the village when the barking of several dogs, quickly
followed by the yells of Indians, attracted their attention, and
riveted them to the earth.
“They’ve discovered the guard!” whispered Lina, breathlessly.
“No,” said Mabel, as the yells increased, “they’ve caught a white
man. Hark!”
“By heavens! Shackelford, I thought I had finished you! I never
missed a shot before, in all my life; but we’ll take care that your
life ends now. Where are the boys?”
The girls heard a coarse laugh, which Lina Aiken knew came from
Shackelford.
“What shall we do now, Mabel?”
“Continue our journey. They have not caught the two boys--only
Frontier Shack, as the hunter is called. We may yet escape.”
Again they started forward; but soon realized that all was lost.
Every lodge was pouring forth its living humanity, and the fugitives
suddenly dropped to the ground, where, with wildly-throbbing hearts
they awaited developments.
The winds blew from the mountains, and brought distant sounds
distinctly to their ears.
Suddenly they heard the tramp of horses, and knew that some persons
were flying from the Apache camp.
“Mabel, listen! we were so near _them_!”
A sigh, a low “yes,” told that the fugitives were on the brink of
safety and yet did not know it.
Charley Shafer and George Long were hurrying back to the mountains.
In the shadow of a lodge the girls continued to crouch, until
every Indian seemed to have reached the spot where the daring
trapper was held in durance vile. Then they rose to their feet and
started forward again; but were quickly seized--this time by the
squaws themselves, who, prowling around the lodges, had discovered
the girls, and a minute later full twenty furious hags surrounded
and held the girls, while a legion of feet approached with quick,
impatient strides.
Foremost among the warriors was Tom Kyle, minus serape, sword, hat
and moccasins. A pistol barrel glittered in either hand, and he
pushed his way through the captors with a series of oaths.
“So my birds tried to get away!” he said, with a grim smile of
satisfaction, when the torches revealed the pale faces, whose cheeks
touched each other, almost. “Well, you find it extremely difficult to
fly from Apachedom, eh, my eastern finches? Here, women, give me my
own. I return them to the cage, and take good care that they shall
not escape again.”
He tore the girls from their captors, and he and the Apaches started
back toward the center of the village.
“By George! girls,” he exclaimed, stepping nearer Lina Aiken, “that
trapper is in the village. I thought I had finished him; but, somehow
or other, I didn’t, and he has guided them two boys to Apache land. I
tell you that he never sees another night. He’s got to die to-morrow,
as sure as my name is Tom Kyle, and that, girls, is a fixed fact!”
The girls were silent, and, after a long period of quietude, the
renegade spoke again:
“Who killed the guard?”
“I did, sir.”
It was Mabel Denison who spoke.
“If the Indians find that out, it may go hard with you. Even Tom Kyle
may not be able to save you. Among the Apaches, it is an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth. If they accuse you, girls, of the death
of the guard, deny it to the bitter end. They do not know that he is
dead.”
The girls soon afterward found themselves back in their old lodge
again. Then the renegade departed, after whispering a few commands
to the three Indians who now guarded the captives.
Borne to the council-square, Frontier Shack was soon pinioned to
the single post ever ready there for its captive, and the horrid
fire-torture. The old hunter well knew his danger but flinched not,
nor betrayed the least sign of uneasiness when the howling throng
pressed around him.
The death of the guard immensely excited the chief Tarantulah. _Who_
had killed the warrior? This secret he tried to wrest from Shack, but
the white man only laughed in his face.
“As if I would tell, even if I knowed!” was his contemptuous answer.
“And you have been helped by some red-man in your visit to the Apache
land. Who is he, that we may burn him with you?” demanded the chief,
fiercely.
“What do you take me for, Indian?” cried the trapper. “A durn fool, I
s’pose. When I go back on anybody, call me a craw-fish.”
Tarantulah bit his lips, and started toward his braves.
“The traitor is Gold Feather!” he cried, “and he has not been seen
to-night.”
“He rode to the mountains when the Manitou’s light hung in the sky,”
answered a sub-chief.
“But he returned,” said another.
“To his lodge, Squatting Bear! Hunt him down, warriors! He is the
traitor! The red-man with a treacherous white skin!”
“What’s that, chief: Gold Feather not a true red-skin?” asked the
renegade, with evident surprise.
“Gold Feather is a white man!”
“I would never have dreamed that. How long has he been with you?”
The chief studied a moment.
“Twenty summers.”
Tom Kyle started at the reply.
“I had a brother once,” he said. “My father took him to Mexico about
twenty years ago, for he and mother quarreled and parted. But the
Comanches caught and killed them. No, Gold Feather is not my brother;
he--”
An Indian suddenly paused before the twain, and broke the renegade’s
sentence.
It was Gold Feather.