THE END OF THE BATTLE.
Turkey-foot was the first to regain his composure, and consequently the
first to speak.
“Watchemenetoc aids the young She-wolf,” he said, as calm as the zenith
of a summer’s sky, “but we are strong enough to vanquish both. Three of
our band lie stiff and cold in her den, and shall she advance, though
all the beings of darkness aid her, and shoot us down like sheep? Shall
the Death League be exterminated ere the dawn of light? Shall none
live to meet the Black Snake on the field of battle? Let my brothers
answer. ’Tis Turkey-foot, the Ottawa, that speaks.”
By Leather-lips, the sorcerer, the chief’s speech was answered.
“We shall not die ignobly,” he cried. “If we can, let us escape and
hunt her down at another time. Now she stands by the small hole ready
to strike us down, one at a time, before our arms can reach her. She
can not long escape us; we can, we will hunt her down before we meet
the Black Snake. Let us escape.”
But now arose the question by what avenue should they gain freedom?
The Girl Avenger did not press her new success; she seemed confident
of ultimate triumph--that every fleeting moment brought the quartette
nearer the dark river. She stood with ready rifle, knife and tomahawk,
at the orifice and awaited with strange patience for the approach of
the doomed band. Around her, easily distinguishable in the light of a
number of dying brands, lay the forms of three members of the League
of Death, and not far away stood as many more suffering from wounds
that laid bones bare. Her right foot rested upon Speckled Snake, whose
warm scalp bled in her girdle beside those of his red brethren whose
brains the butt of her avenging rifle had dashed against the limestone
walls. Her escape from the corridor that now confined the remainder
of the League was easily accomplished. The cave, as I have before
mentioned, was far below the surface of the cliffs, and consisted of
gloomy apartments above one another like the rooms of some great hotel.
All of the dark passages had never been explored by the Girl Avenger;
but she had examined enough for utility and comfort. In the roof of
the particular corridor above mentioned, was the orifice of a passage
whose tortuous track brought the traverser to the main cave through one
of the somber niches. With a view to future use in times of danger,
the Girl Avenger, by means of strong wooden levers, had rolled a loose
stone to the edge of the opening, over which it could be pushed with
the strength of her slender arms. When she reached the termination
of the corridor she threw herself up into the higher passage, gave
the stone a trial of her strength, and heard--for it was too dark to
see--it settle down over the cavity.
Then taking the right corridor, for others led different ways from the
aperture, she gained the cave again, and gave forth the shout which
drove the color from the faces of her foes.
By excessive manipulation Turkey-foot’s torch burned with a bright
flame, and revealed to their eyes the avenue by which their bitter
enemy had escaped; but the great stone completely blocked it now.
The next moment Leather-lips, the Hercules of his nation, sprung
forward, put his shoulders against the bowlder, and exerted all his
strength, which did nothing more than to move it a hair’s breadth. With
a cry of anger he struck it with his tomahawk, and the sound of the
blows were wafted to the ears of the avenger in the cave.
The stone must be moved: without its removal the League of Death would
become extinct. They knew that a passage above them led to the main
cave, for events had just demonstrated this, and could they gain the
passage they could assail the Girl Avenger from two points, and the
battle would result favorably to them, after all.
“Now all hands to the stone!” cried Joe Girty, who had observed the
result of Leather-lips’ performance. “Leather-lips moved it a bit, and
can we not throw it entirely back? I can throw near half a ton over my
head, or could a short time since, though now I may be even stronger
than ever. Now, braves, for your lives summon all the strength you ever
possessed. If we move that stone our hands will grow redder than ever
in her heart; if we fail, her hands will bathe in ours. Now! Snakes! I
wish I was Samson!”
The band exerted all its strength, and the result was almost
unexpected--the stone was raised, and before it could settle down
again, a second putting forth of strong hands had rolled it from the
aperture.
In the glare of the torch every sweaty face glowed with triumph and
revenge.
“Now!” said Turkey-foot, “she is ours, the Manitou put new strength
into our limbs, and the power of Watchemenetoc could not prevail
against it. We must now fight her. Wacomet and Leather-lips will creep
back and crouch in the gloom beyond her eyes and the fires, in this
dark hole. Turkey-foot and the white Ottawa will climb up into the hole
over our heads, and attack her in the rear. Now go. She knows not that
we have moved the stone; and when the hoot of the owl pierces your
ears, spring from the blackness upon her.”
Before Wacomet and Leather-lips turned to their mission, they saw the
chief and the renegade draw themselves up into the opening, after
extinguishing the torch.
In the darkness near the orifice of the lower corridor crouched Wacomet
and the sorcerer, waiting for the attacking signal. They knew that the
Girl Avenger still occupied her post, for they could distinguish the
barrel of her rifle between them and the torches. Once or twice Wacomet
was on the point of rushing forth, but Leather-lips restrained him and
bade him wait for the signal.
At last it came, seemingly from the wooded banks of the stream beyond
the cave, which circumstance the twain did not pause to note, but
darted forward.
Leather-lips was in the advance and grasped the glittering rifle-barrel
as he bounded from the corridor. It fell on easy prey; there was no
hand to contend with him for the possession of it, and no form, save
those of his slaughtered countrymen, greeted him in the great cave.
Where was the Girl Avenger, and where Girty and the Ottawa chief?
Surely the latter had given the signal, for it had pierced their ears
and impelled them forward. In the center of the cave, splendid targets
for the unerring aim of the Girl Avenger, and statues of indecision,
stood the two chiefs gazing into each other’s faces. The torches--or
rather the brands which had now assumed the office of torches--bathed
the entire cave in a mellow light and revealed every object to the
statuary pair.
While thus they stood, the signal--the hoot of the night-owl--was
thrice repeated, now in an imperative and half-angry tone, and a cry
of astonishment mingled with the darkly mysterious, parted the chief’s
lips. Why did not the others show themselves, and cease repeating the
signals which had been obeyed? Were they to fight the She-wolf alone,
or had Turkey-foot and his white friend wandered off into other dark
passages in which the twain believed the earth overhead to abound?
Suddenly the peculiar scream of the white heron came to their ears, and
a few minutes later a footstep faintly sounded in the main corridor.
Leather-lips clutched his companion’s arm, and drew him back into the
niche, where they crouched with eyes fixed upon the main passage.
Presently a head--a human cranium--no further from the ground than
the head of a cur, became visible in the corridor, and the two
chiefs almost uttered a cry when they recognized it as the head of
_Kenowatha_! It appeared to them but for a moment--just long enough
for the keen eyes of the white Indian to take a quick survey of the
cave--then was withdrawn. The red watchers held their breath, and
waited further developments, believing that fate intended to play the
boy into their hands. If he had not encountered the Girl Avenger, he
would become more bold after a spell, and enter the cave. For this they
waited, and in their eagerness to secure the boy, forgot their brethren
wandering about in unexplored passages, which might lead to death too
horrible to contemplate.
At length the head again appeared, and this time it was followed by
the entire figure of Kenowatha. He crept forward on all fours, his
rifle clutched in his right hand, and dragging at his side his tomahawk
in his left. Presently, seemingly satisfied that no foes lurked near
enough to take his life, the White Fox rose to his feet and stood
over the dead Indians. He had gazed upon them long enough to see the
scarlet crescent upon their brows, when the two chiefs darted forward.
The great hand of the red sorcerer gripped the boy’s arm; but with
an agility and strength entirely unexpected by the savages, he tore
himself away, sprung to the further side of the cave, and threw his
rifle to his shoulder. Instantaneous with this latter action on the
part of the youth Leather-lips darted forward; but the rifle broke the
demi-silence and the sorcerer measured his giant length on the stones.
The chief had scarcely touched the floor of the cave when Kenowatha
sprung upon Wacomet. The fire of vengeance flashed from the youth’s
eyes, and the Indian upon first thought felt disposed to meet him.
But when his mind recurred to the prisoners he had borne from the cave
a short time previous--to the reward he could obtain for the stricken
soldier--to the prize in the person of Effie St. Pierre which he would
lose should the battle prove disastrous to him, he retreated to the
main corridor, into which he darted, as Kenowatha’s gun tore a ghastly
furrow down his naked back.
Knowing that it would be useless to follow Wacomet, Kenowatha turned to
place his mark--the bloody cross--upon Leather-lips’ brow, to behold
the spot where the sorcerer had fallen untenanted!
“Kenowatha’s bullet did not find his heart,” he said, in a tone of
bitter disappointment, “and the red sorcerer has fled. But Kenowatha
will meet him again--when the broad sunlight falls upon his face, and
then--then the mark shall crown his head. Ha!” and the speaker suddenly
sprung to the opposite wall, his eyes fastened upon something thereon.
Suddenly he paused before that which had excited his curiosity, and
read, in French, the words that Effie had traced upon the limestone
with the keil:
“We are the prisoners of Wacomet, the Ottawa--destined for a hidden
place somewhere.”
The handwriting on the wall sent a thrill to Kenowatha’s heart. Who
were included in the word “_we_?” If Nanette was a prisoner why had
she been permitted to mark the dead Indians--still more, why were they
still lying in the cave? The information was enveloped in mystery to
Kenowatha, and the longer he gazed upon the words the more mysterious
they grew. Prisoners of Wacomet alone! Why not of the entire League of
Death, and why was Wacomet present but a moment since, and not with his
prisoners?
Unconscious, in the attempt to solve the mystery, that he was exposing
his person to the balls and tomahawks of those who sought his life,
Kenowatha stood before the wall until a footstep suddenly aroused him
and caused him to face the niche in his rear. Immediately upon the
precipitate retreat of Wacomet, the White Fox had rammed a bullet home,
and now his rifle was directed at a spot just below a tuft of feathers
in the niche. There he knew was a face, and whose face save that of one
of his bitterest foes?
A moment later might have sealed the doom of the person, when his name,
pronounced as softly as woman ever spoke, came from the niche:
“Kenowatha.”
He sprung forward, a figure darted from the niche, and in the center of
the cave he met the Girl Avenger!
“The battle is ended, Kenowatha,” she said, touching the trio of fresh
scalps in her girdle. “They dreamed of an easy victory, not of a
disastrous defeat. The Death League will never forget this night. But
a moment since I saw Turkey-foot, the white Ottawa and Wacomet meet
on the edge of the stream. The great chief and the white Ottawa got
lost in the many dark paths above our heads, and at last found their
way through passages which they could never traverse again, to the
water. I heard them lift the stone away, and I glided to a spot which
they could not reach. Ah! Kenowatha, I wished for you at my side when
the red devils surrounded me. Oh, we would have annihilated the red
League; but, boy, their time is fast coming. They may fill up their
ranks whenever we strike, but soon there will be no ranks to fill. See!
where are my string of scalps? where the guns I tore from hands cold in
death, where all my trophies? Gone, boy, gone! Oh, I’ll have a terrible
revenge now: for every scalp the demons burned to-night I will have
two, and I swear that the League of Death shall melt away before my
rifle.”
“Before _our_ rifles say, girl,” said Kenowatha, clutching her arm as
he looked up into her face.
“_Ours_, then, be it,” she cried. “But, Kenowatha, where’s the White
Rose and the bad red-coat?”
Kenowatha pointed to the writing on the pale wall, and Nanette soon
mastered it.
“I read the past through those words,” she said, turning to the
youth, who waited with impatience for her to speak. “Wacomet must
have entered the cave in advance of his brethren. Seeking the honor
promised by his tribe to the Indian who should rid the world of me, he
came hither alone, I say, found the girl and the major here, and took
them captives. ‘Destined to a hidden spot somewhere,’ writes the pale
girl on the stones. That place must be discovered, boy--ay, discovered
before the white spy returns, else what will he think of us--of our
promise, that we would watch the girl and well. I know you are with me,
Kenowatha,” and her little hand stole into his, which action sent a
thrill to his heart, “and when I swear that I will give my feet no rest
until Effie is torn from the snares of the red snake, I know that your
heart, beating in unison with mine, responds, amen.”
“Yes, yes, our lives have grown into one existence, Nanette, and we
will rescue the girl that she may receive the kiss of pure love when
her brave lover returns. But, girl, how long will your vengeance last?”
The eyes of the Girl Avenger sought the stones, and wandered over them
with a listless stare.
“I don’t know, Kenowatha,” she said, at length, a pearl-drop glistening
upon her cheek. “Why did you ask?”
It was his turn now to avert his eyes, and in his silence she read what
he would yet feared to speak.
“Boy,” she said, breaking the silence that reigned in the cave, “I
know all that you would say, and, for your sake, I promise this one
thing--that when _you_ sheathe the knife of vengeance in your girdle, I
will say, ‘enough!’”
He turned his eyes upon her with a flash of joy, gently drew her to his
heart, and rained warm kisses on her dimpled cheek.
“Have no fears that you shall not have your fill of vengeance, girl,”
he said; “for not until the Death League is exterminated--not until the
Indians have made bloody reparation for the loss you have sustained
to-night, will I sheathe the blade of vengeance. Only I wanted some one
to love me, girl--some bright future to look ahead to, beyond these
dark days. I have it, I am happy!”
After awhile she said to him:
“Were you to the British fort?”
“No. In the dark wood, something told me that all was not right here.
The further I went, the stronger that something’s voice grew, and
my mind knew no peace until I turned my face toward you. I gave our
signal, which did not reach you in your hiding-place, I suppose.”
“I heard it not, boy,” she answered, and her lips moved to speak on,
when the cry of the heron--twice repeated, came from beyond the cave to
their ears.
Undoubtedly it was a signal.
“Come,” said Nanette; “we might as well commence our hunt for the white
Rose to-night as any other time. Wacomet will not return to his people
without visiting his prisoners. He is playing a double game, and unless
yon words were read by the White Ottawa during the fight--which I think
improbable--the secret of captivity remains with Wacomet and ourselves.
Ha! the white heron again. Come! The red demons can have this cave now;
thank God, ’tis the only hiding-place on earth.”
A minute later, the twain glided from the cave, now tenanted by the
three corpses that formed a ghastly group in the center.