Walking Moose slept a deep and dreamless sleep. The Mohawk bound him at
ankles and wrists, and then lifted him to his massive shoulders.
“Lead the way!” he commanded.
The girl took up her father’s weapons and a long, tough rope of twisted
leather, and entered the forest behind the lodge. The big warrior, with
his limp burden, followed close upon her heels. They moved silently,
through deep coverts and shadowed valleys, by an unmarked, twisting way.
The sun slid down behind the western spruces and twilight deepened over
the wilderness.
“For such a mighty chief he was wonderfully simple,” remarked the
Mohawk.
Hawk-in-the-Tree did not reply.
At last they came to the river above the fall that was called the Veil
of Flying Water. The twilight had thickened to darkness by now; but
these two required only a little light, for they had studied this part
of the river and the bellowing fall night after night. The man laid
Walking Moose on the ground and drew a small canoe from under a blanket
of moss and bushes. He made one end of the raw-hide rope fast to the
bars and gunnels of the canoe. He tied the other end strongly to a tree
at the edge of the bank. He felt no uncertainty as to the strength and
exact length of the rope. Everything had been tested; the whole amazing
deed had been done before, as far as that had been possible without the
presence of Walking Moose.
Now the Mohawk placed the canoe at the very edge of the water and lifted
the drugged chief into it. He fastened one end of a shorter line around
his victim’s body just below the shoulders and under the arms. Then he
cut the thongs that bound wrists and ankles.
“He will die of hunger within bowshot of his own village,” he muttered.
With the slack of the long rope in his hand he edged the canoe into the
racing current, stepped aboard, and let it ease slowly down towards the
top of the sheer, out-leaping fury of white water. At the very brow of
the screaming slope the canoe hung for more than a minute. Then it came
slowly back to where the girl waited on the shore. The big Mohawk
stepped out of it, grinning broadly. Walking Moose had vanished.
The Mohawk unfastened the rope and coiled it over his arm. With the
girl’s help he returned the canoe to the little hollow and covered it
with moss. Hawk-in-the-Tree stood behind him, trembling. This was her
father; but the young man who now lay with death above and below and on
every side—what of him? She had hated him at one time. But now——
[Illustration: “At 1.5 Andy announced that there was one infallible way
to start a refractory car” (page 64).]
She held the shorter of the two ropes of leather in her hands. She made
a noose of it. Her father stooped before, spreading the moss over the
canoe. She crouched suddenly, gripped his ankles, and jerked his feet
backwards, from under him. He pitched headfirst into the hollow with
stunning force.