A TURNING OF TABLES.
To acquaint the reader with Artena’s sudden appearance before Cohoon’s
would-be-torturers, we must needs return to the bank that overlooked
the interior of the cave.
For many minutes after Donald McKay’s departure in search of the boat,
which was intended to convey her from Jack’s stronghold, Artena kept
her eye fixed upon the sleeping spies and their surroundings. She felt
suspicious of Baltimore Bob, indeed, she had reached the conclusion
that he had recognized the two men, despite their paint and Klamath
garments, and she looked for some coming treachery on his part.
Therefore, so intent upon these thoughts was the Indian’s mind, that
the footsteps that loosened a pebble and caused it to roll into the
black water, did not disturb her in the least. True, the noise was
scarcely distinguishable above the swash of the waves; but it was big
with events.
A dark figure wearing a cavalry jacket and Indian leggings was crawling
upon the watcher with the movements of the panther, and the look that
shot from the dark eyes was indicative of the fiercest triumph and
revenge, strangely commingled.
Once or twice the Indian--for an Indian the girls’ foe undoubtedly
was--paused and listened, as if he knew that Donald McKay was not far
off; but he never took his eyes from his prey.
Suddenly crouching very near the ground, imitating the movements of
the panther in every particular, he sprung upon the watcher, who was
secured before she could comprehend her situation.
One of the scarlet hands prevented her from crying aloud, and down the
bank with his captive the savage hurried.
He knew his path in the gloom, and avoided the numerous crags that
projected riverward as dexterously as though he could see like the owl.
By and by he took his hand from Artena’s mouth, cautioning her at the
same time not to utter a word, and at length executed a halt, in the
midst of Stygian darkness.
He had bound the nether limbs of the Squaw Spy in the light of the fire
beside which the spies slept, and he placed her on the ground, while he
turned his attention to the kindling of a fire.
In this he succeeded, and the blaze told Artena that her captor was a
gigantic young savage, named Hunter Phil.
She had known him for years; in truth, from girlhood--known him as a
vindictive lover, who had persecuted her with his attentions without
a moment’s cessation, when she was in his presence. But she had not,
until that hour of capture, encountered him for some time, and had
begun to hope that some Union bullet had terminated his existence.
“Artena with Phil once more,” said the Indian, turning from the fire
and throwing himself before the girl, who sat on the stony floor of the
little cavern. “Phil no let Jack catch her again, for he’d kill her for
spying in his stony lodges for blue-coats.”
“Then, what are you going to do with me?” asked the girl, anxiously,
but with great calmness.
“Phil going to leave Modocs,” was the reply. “Blue-coats whip ’em,
by ’m by. Jack’s cause lost, and Phil want to save his neck, for big
General hang Jack and his braves. So, Phil leave cave when night come
again, and Artena go with him to Arrow-Head.”
“But blue-coat law take Phil there.”
“Then Phil go to Feather river. Won’t catch him there!”
“Ah! but they will,” said the girl, with a smile at the Indian’s fear
of justice.
“Then Phil get in big ship, an’ go out on ocean. If blue-coats follow
him there, then he go to--” he paused and looked up into Artena’s
eyes--“to the devil!”
The girl laughed at the expression of triumph that sat enthroned upon
the Indian’s face. He had solved the difficult problem of ultimate
escape, and was proud thereof.
“Does Phil think that Jack would kill Artena?” asked the girl, quickly
returning to seriousness.
The Indian nodded.
“Kill her in minute! Don’t he know that she Davis’ spy? Hasn’t Phil
lain beside the big General’s tent and heard Artena tell him about
Jack? And Baltimore Bob came right from the camp after hearing Artena
and Kit talking to Davis, and told Jack that she was a traitress. Ah,
Artena, Jack knows all at last. You go with Phil now, eh?”
The girl nodded, and almost beside himself with joy, the savage drew
his knife and severed her bonds.
Then she continued to converse with her dusky lover, until, completely
hoodwinked by her cunning words, he was thrown off his guard, and never
dreamed of treachery.
Without resistance, she possessed herself of his tomahawk, talking the
while of their future life among the Klamaths, and all at once the
weapon shot up into space, and as quickly and irresistibly descended
upon the unprotected head of the red-skin!
It took a terrible blow to fell the giant; but Artena’s arm was equal
to the emergency, and with a groan, he sunk to the ground.
She did not wish to kill him, for to him, no doubt, she owed her life,
and with throbless heart, she bent over the stricken lover, and felt
his pulse. For a moment it beat to the ratio of one hundred beats per
minute, and then they lessened until they ceased altogether.
Hunter Phil was dead!
Quite assured of this, the Squaw Spy rose to her feet, and once more
possessed herself of her own weapons. Now she would return to the bank,
where Donald, no doubt, waited for her, and wondered at her absence.
She knew that Phil was not aware of the ranger’s presence: his words
had told her this; and she was too far remote from the bank to hear
the shots that broke the stillness there a while after her departure.
Thoroughly acquainted with the intricacies of the Lava-Beds, Artena
thought that she could return to the spot without difficulty, and left
the dead lover’s cave on her mission.
But she missed the proper corridor, and followed one which led her to
a contemplation of the scene which was transpiring in Jack’s cave--the
arraignment of Cohoon as a spy.
She watched it from the shadow of a lava-crag, with an interest
bordering on terror, and when the Modoc’s arm was lifted to take the
Warm Springer’s life, by a well-directed pistol-shot she disarmed the
executioner, and then fearlessly showed herself, as the reader has
already witnessed.
Immediately after shooting the pistol from Jack’s hand, she flung her
weapons into the deeper gloom, deeming it policy to deny the act, which
was ascribed to McKay by the Indians.
What followed her surrender is described in chapter ten, so far as it
goes, and now we resume the thrilling narrative.
* * * * *
Cohoon lay on the ground, like one dead; but he was still imbued with
life.
The arrow had produced a senseless state, so nearly akin to death as
to deceive the Indians, and they glared fiercely upon the youth whose
empty bow told that he had sped the fatal arrow.
“Here, boy,” and the speaker, Captain Jack, turned upon the youth.
“Here, I want you, I say.”
Several chiefs pushed the youth forward, and he soon found himself
lifted from the ground by Mouseh’s strong arms.
“Curse your little heart!” cried the chief. “You’ve punished the man
whom I alone had the right to punish. Now to the spirit-land I send
you. Yon lava-wall will be reddened by your blood, and may your fate be
a warning to future self-installed executioners.”
He raised the youth above his head, as he uttered the last sentence,
and darted a quick look at Artena, who, with ready rifle, stood over
her lover, her eyes fixed upon the youth, so speedily devoted to death.
A moment of breathless suspense followed, and then the Indian boy left
the chief’s grasp.
But his body did not strike the stony wall.
No! it struck a wall of flesh and blood, and Artena and ’Reesa South
were hurled ten feet backward by the strange weapon!
“Secure them!” cried Jack, pointing to the stricken girls with an air
of triumph, and several braves snatched thongs from their girdles and
sprung to the task.
The Indian’s invention had baffled his foes, and the hurling of the
youth against them was an action unlooked-for by every occupant of the
cave.
The force of the body was absolutely irresistible; it flew from Jack’s
hands like a thunderbolt, and after prostrating the girls, it struck
the foot of the wall beyond, and quivered there like a piece of raw
liver.
Jack’s victory was greeted with wild shouts of approbation, and he
stepped forward quietly and secured the Spencer which had fallen from
Artena’s hands.
Then he stooped over Cohoon, and smiled faintly when he looked up at
his braves again.
A moment later, the Warm Spring chief opened his eyes, and, with the
assistance of his stern captor, rose to his feet.
His hands had been lashed to his side, but his nether limbs were free,
and he looked around upon the scene.
Neither Artena nor ’Reesa had recovered from the attack. Side by side
they lay, like corpses, in the light of the fire, and when the spy’s
gaze fell upon them, he shot a look of vengeance at Jack.
“Dead?”
The question was quite natural, for the young red ranger could not see
the girls’ bonds, which the position of their bodies hid.
“Dead are Artena and the white girl,” answered the Modoc, to see what
effect such words would have upon the ranger, and also to torture his
inmost soul.
A tinge of pain quivered Cohoon’s lips, and the lurid light of a storm
flashed in his dark eyes. That light warned more than one Indian, and
the clicking of rifle-locks again broke the silence.
“Who else, then?” demanded the ranger, and he moved forward an inch.
The lying answer accorded well with the torture which the chief’s first
words had inflicted.
“This hand,” cried Jack, stretching forth his right hand. “It sent
Cohoon’s traitress--”
The snapping of cords interrupted the sentence, and the next moment the
spy was among his enemies! Jack saw the veins on his forehead swell to
enormous size; but the storm burst before he could prepare to receive
it.
The strength of a Sampson slept in the ranger’s muscles, and he leaped
among the Modocs with a short, sharp cry, closely allied to the
vengeful sound that often emerges from the panther’s throat.
Captain Jack received a blow from the Spencer, which the madman
wrenched from his grip, and then the weapon was stained with other
blood.
His sudden onslaught nonplused the Indians. They dared not shoot, for
their own brethren were likely to receive the balls, and only those
nearest Cohoon could get a sight of him.
He cleared a path for his daring feet.
Like Simon Kenton, among the savages of early Ohio, he fought his way
to the river bank, and then disappeared!
But not uninjured!
His escape from death seemed miraculous. It was his sudden onslaught
that saved him. It confused the savages, and almost in the twinkling of
an eye he was gone.
They could swear that his trail was marked with his own blood, and when
they returned to their chief, who was recovering from the spy’s attack,
it was to tell him that his foe would never cross his path again.
This brave had sunk his knife into the scout’s side; that one had shot
him in the back as he fell into the stream, and a third had crushed one
shoulder with a clubbed carbine.
Not a savage could be found who had not inflicted some wound upon the
brave ranger, and amid the bestowal of self-praise, Jack rose to his
feet and pointed to the two captives still remaining in his hands.
“Scar-face,” he said, “take them to the little spring cave, and let the
eyes of three of my best braves regard them until I command further.”
Scar-faced Charley sprung to his task, and with the assistance of four
braves whom he selected from the band, the two helpless captives were
borne from the cave.
The chieftain was not in the humor to carry out his plans of punishment
at present. He pressed his hand to his head, but quickly removed it,
and saw it covered with blood.
“Look!” he cried, putting forth the gory member. “Mouseh’s blood is
flowing. Come, Modocs, swear that for every drop that falls from his
head, a blue-coat shall die!”
Then the cave resounded with shouts of vengeance; and stepping toward
the wall, with his own blood the murderer of Canby traced the outlines
of a gallows on the gray stone.
Then he turned to his braves, but spoke not.
They read the significance of the horrid design, and swore, for the
hundredth time, to die with rifles in their hands.
Some kept their oaths; but how Jack and others kept theirs, the reader
of the Modoc war has seen.