"Yes," added Jake, with a sigh of something like pleasure; "it looks
very much as though I've got a chance to even up my accounts with 'em
all. The folks are having a good time on t'other side the river, and
to-morrer, when Forty Fort surrenders, Wyoming will be wiped out so
clean that the only way of telling where it has been will be by the
ashes.
"I've got a lot of the best Senecas that ever took the war-path, and
I've promised them the biggest kind of a reward if they succeed in
scooping in the whole party. Queen Esther told 'em to go with me and do
just as I directed, so they're bound to show the stuff they're made of.
Gray Panther is their chief, and he's directing 'em, and he beats any
Injin I ever heard tell of for downright cunning, and is as good as a
bloodhound on the trail."
Thus it was that, although Jake Golcher was the nominal head of the war
party, the renowned chief, Gray Panther, was guiding operations, and it
is to that remarkable Seneca Indian that the success of the redskins in
out-generaling the fugitives was due.
"I know that Maggie came near pegging out with a broken heart when her
mother died, three years ago," continued Golcher, "and she is so
attached to her father, brother, and sister, that she will do anything
in her power to save harm coming to them."
This fact could not fail to suggest the course that had taken shape in
his mind long before.
"We will capture them all; then I'll make known my terms: Maggie must
agree to marry me; she will do it, too, if she makes the promise, and
I'll agree to let all the rest go. I'll keep my word so far as the old
man and Eva, and I guess the Aunt Peggy, is concerned; but there's two
that I'll wipe out--Fred Godfrey and that Gravity Gimp.
"I may have to promise to let up on 'em, but I can fix it with Gray
Panther, so they'll be _accidentally_ killed; but I'll never feel easy
till they're both underground. As for that nigger--" And taking out his
pipe, he ground his teeth together, and clenched the fingers of the free
hand, and then, looking up, saw Gravity Gimp, the African, standing
before him.
"Good-evenin'," said the servant, bowing low, and making a salaam with
his broad hand, inasmuch as he was without his hat; "I hopes I finds yer
werry well dis ebenin."
Jake Golcher sprang to his feet, and his pipe dropped from his hand. It
often happens that the very person of whom we are thinking turns up
before us, but, although there was nothing supernatural in the
appearance of the African, the renegade was startled for the moment into
believing that such was the fact.
Quickly recovering, he muttered something, and sitting down again on the
log, picked up his pipe, took a puff or two, and looking at the lame
African, asked:
"Where did you come from? I thought you was Satan."
"Dat's purty rough on Satan; but I's Gravity Gimp, at your sarvice, and
if it am all de same I'll sot down on de log beside yer, being dat I've
got a tremenjus game leg."
As he spoke, Gravity limped to the fallen tree, and took his seat a
short distance away, uttering a groan of pain, and nursing the limb as
though his torture was great.
Jake Golcher was sure he never saw such impudence, but he concluded to
humor the fellow for a while, until he could extract some information
from him.
He was sorry his leg had been injured, for he would have liked to make
him run the gauntlet, and now the suffering to which he should be doomed
would have to take a different character.
The Tory first asked the Indians some questions, and gathered how the
powerful negro had been captured. It was done under the direction of
Gray Panther, whose hand appeared in many a skillful achievement that
evening and the day following.
Golcher learned from the same chief that every movement of the fugitives
had been noted, and that the whites had been deceived to such an extent
that they were likely to walk into the trap the Senecas had set for
them.
Jake was favorable to making an open attack on the whites, but the
sachem assured him they could all be taken without the loss of any more
warriors, and so it was left to the chief.
There was only one point in which the Senecas were at fault, and that
was respecting the man who fired the second shot, that killed the Indian
as he was leaping for the rocks from which to shoot at the fugitives.
They supposed it was discharged from within the cavern, and were unaware
of the fact that Lieutenant Godfrey was so near his friends without
being with them.
They did not learn of his cautious descent, and only discovered his
presence among them after the capture of the African and the start made
by the fugitives to leave the ravine.
Golcher was much interested in the news, and he urged Gray Panther to
spare no effort to make his success complete, assuring him of a big
reward, in addition to the praise of Queen Esther, who at that moment
was engaged on the other side the river in torturing a number of
prisoners.
The chief assured him that he had no cause for uneasiness, and then,
turning about, withdrew with his warriors, leaving only a single one
with Jake Golcher to guard the prisoner.