AN ATTACK IN THE REAR.
While following the trail of Rudolph Runnion, a brief time prior to the
battle in the ravine, Nanette and Kenowatha saw two plumed figures whom
they took to be Indians. Instantly the youthful twain threw themselves
behind trees; but a moment later were surprised to hear their names
pronounced in good English.
“’Tis Mark!” cried the Girl Avenger, looking at Kenowatha, as she
stepped from behind the poplar. “I know his voice as though I had
followed it from girlhood. He and a brother spy are but a short
distance in advance of the avenging army.”
While the last words still quivered Nanette’s lips, the two disguised
scouts rushed forward, and a moment later the quartette had met.
Mark Morgan was horrified at the story that the Girl Avenger related,
and again the trail of the red-coated assassin was trod by the terrors
of the wood.
By-and-by the sounds of conflict fell upon their ears; they rushed
forward, and, as the reader has seen, poured their deadly fire into the
writhing ranks of the besiegers.
It was plainly evident to the quartette, after the major’s words, that
they had a truly desperate man to deal with, and they fell beyond range
of his deadly rifle for consultation. They believed Effie dead; but
whether she had fallen by the Briton’s hand or perished by suffocation,
they knew not. As it was, her death should be terribly avenged; though
Wayne were left to chastise the savages without their potent aid, and
they longed to follow Mad Anthony to victory.
Calmly, but with defiant mien, the disgraced soldier awaited the onset
of his new enemies. He occupied a niche to the right of the opening
into the cave, with his rifle grasped firmly in his hand, his pistols
and knife at his feet, ready for instant use. He had been terribly
mangled by the knife and hatchet during the late desperate conflict.
The skin literally hung from his cheeks in strips; his arms were
lacerated from elbow to wrist; a tomahawk had laid the right temple
bare; and from other but minor wounds he suffered dreadfully.
He knew that his end was near; but he would perish like the wolf, and
with his last breath bury his knife in the heart of a foe.
Since he had grasped Effie St. Pierre’s cold hand, no sound had reached
his ears from that gloomy portion of the cave, though he had listened
attentively for it since the lull in the storm of human passions. The
thought that the girl was dead was as sweet to his mind as wildwood
honey to the Indian’s lips. She had died his, as he had sworn she
should; he had outwitted his rivals at last, and Mark Morgan might
press a corpse to his heart if he liked.
At last Mark Morgan’s voice came to his ears.
“Rudolph Runnion, enough blood has been shed, and to prevent the
useless effusion of more, I call upon you to surrender.”
“You might have saved your breath,” came the major’s answer, quick upon
the heels of the spy’s sentence. “Parley is useless. If you want Ru’
Runnion, come and take him--dead as a stone.”
“Then we will take you--dead though it be!” was Mark Morgan’s
rejoinder, and scarcely a moment later a large bunch of burning brush
was thrust into the mouth of the cave, by a long pole in the hands of
the second scout.
“We’re going to give you more smoke,” was the taunt that Kenowatha
threw to the major; “we’re going to cheat you out of the shots you
desire, and suffocate you as we would an obstinate bear.”
An oath greeted the youth’s words, and again seizing his coat the
soldier sprung from the niche and fought the thick volumes with his
old vim. He succeeded in forcing the fiery brush from the cave, and it
rolled to the bottom of the ravine. But, the flames had communicated
with some of the unburnt undergrowth to the left of the fissure,
and again the treacherous wind was driving the demon right into his
stronghold.
At this turn of ill-fortune the desperate man cursed the breeze; hurled
his chosen anathemas into the face of his Maker, and pressed one of the
pistols against his bruised temple.
“Yes, yes, they shall find me dead,” he grated with fiendish triumph,
as his finger touched the trigger; but, before the weapon could be
discharged, a footstep toward the angle startled him, and turning he
beheld, by the light of several burning boughs which had been left in
the cave, a figure which he deemed the spirit of Effie St. Pierre.
The face of the figure was as white as the shroud of the departed, and
the pistol fell from the noiseless hand of the soldier, as the specter
shot forward with a cry, as unnatural as the color of its face.
Something like a petrified bough was raised aloft above the girl’s
head; a moment later countless millions of stars danced before the
Briton’s face, and he staggered and fell at the foot of the niche.
Over his prostrate form sprung his pale vanquisher, and, an instant
later, she sunk upon the rocks beyond the smoke, in the breath of the
pure wind!
A cry followed her swoon, and four figures were bending over her, and
looking from her pale face into each others’ with astonishment.
“She lives! she lives!” cried Mark Morgan, as he saw the girl’s lids
unclose, and while he pressed her to his heart, his companions sprung
fearlessly into the fissure, and a moment later reappeared with the
senseless form of the British major.
“He’s not going to escape the hangman, after all,” said Kenowatha, as
they laid their captive upon the rocks near his almost victim. “He’s
badly mangled, but a man who can stand what he has, can stand more.”
A few moments witnessed Effie’s complete recovery, and in a few words
she related her vanquishing of the Briton. When Rudolph Runnion touched
her hand in the gloomy cave she must have been in a deep swoon, that
admirably counterfeited death, for she knew nothing of his visit, and
when she came to her senses, the little apartment was filled with
pure air, and a moment afterward she was startled by hearing the
major’s defiant words. Presently she knew that the red-skins had been
vanquished, and that her lover was beyond the cave. Groping in the
gloom her fingers clutched a bough denuded of bark, and swarming with
knots which contributed to its toughness, and the burning brush enabled
her to attack the Briton with the gratifying result just witnessed.
“I guess we’re ready to go, now,” said Mark, when Effie finished her
narration, and assured him that she felt strong enough to keep pace
with him through the wood. “Mad Anthony is near his prey now. To-morrow
will witness the great battle.”
“And the entire destruction of the Death League,” hissed the Girl
Avenger. “To-morrow I shall meet its surviving members--Turkey-foot and
Joe Girty, and, ere nightfall, the crimson crescent shall adorn their
brows!”
“Effie, we’ll hide you somewhere until after the battle,” said Morgan.
“No! no! Mark. On the morrow I fight at your side. Have I not parents
to avenge? Did not the red demons tear their scalps from their heads?
Ay, and should I not have revenge? I will have it, Mark! You can not
keep me from the red conflict! I will fight at your side, and my voice
shall swell the victorious chorus of our people to-morrow night.”
“Then so be it, Effie,” said her lover. “May the God of battle watch
over you, girl, for the morrow will be the bloodiest day ever witnessed
by these old woods.”
With some difficulty Rudolph Runnion was restored to consciousness, and
his wounds carefully dressed. He chafed terribly over his situation,
knowing the doom in store for him, and tried to free himself from the
avengers’ bonds.
At length the captors set out upon their return to Wayne’s army, which
they found encamped at Roche de Bœuf, just south of the present site of
Waterville, where heavy earthworks were being erected.
The major was placed under a strong guard, with the knowledge that
Wayne’s intentions were to deliver him over to the avengers of blood
immediately after the battle.