The shock terrified the whole camp.
Aunt Peggy dropped the piece of meat she was cooking, and sprang back
with a gasp. The other Indians, accustomed as they were to violence,
stared in blank wonder, while those on the fallen tree leaped to their
feet and gazed at the figure of the Indian as he lay on his face, with
his tomahawk clenched in his vise-like grip.
Jake Golcher was dazed, and neither spoke nor stirred until Maggie, in
the very depths of her agony, ran to him and exclaimed:
"What is the meaning of this? Was he seeking father's life? If he was,
it was _you_ who told him to do it!"
The Tory looked in the white face of the girl, and said, in a surly
voice:
"I didn't know anything about it."
"Oh, Jake," she continued, talking rapidly, and in such mental distress
that every eye was fixed upon her; "if this is _your_ work, a just God
will punish you for it. Father has never sought to injure you. We are
neighbors, and belong to the same race--"
He attempted to turn away, but she caught his arm, and faced him about.
"You shall hear me. If you want human lives, take _mine_--take Eva's,
but spare his gray hairs; do him a wrong, and as sure as our Heavenly
Father reigns above, a punishment shall come to you. Show him mercy,
treat us as human beings, and you will thank Him to your dying day that
He led you aright, when you went so far astray."
The father would have gone forward and drawn her away, but he was held
by her soulful eloquence.
She staggered back and would have fallen, had not Aunt Peggy, who, after
all, was the most cool-headed one in the party, seen what was coming and
caught her in her arms.
Half-supporting and half-dragging her, she got her back to the tree,
where she gently seated her.
Poor Maggie threw her arms around the good woman's neck and gave way to
hysterical sobbing, while her aunt tried to soothe her.
Mr. Brainerd sat like a statue, but his lips trembled, and it required
all the power of his will to keep from breaking down as utterly as did
Maggie herself, who, flinging one of her arms around weeping Eva,
gathered her and their aunt in an embrace, and surrendered to her
tempest of grief.
The Senecas looked on, but if there was any glimmering of tenderness in
their nature it did not struggle to the surface, and the trees around
them could not have betrayed less emotion.
As for Jake Golcher, he scanned the picture with darker passions than
those of the savages themselves.
He did not stir, but, when he saw Habakkuk McEwen look inquiringly at
him, he beckoned him to approach.
The frightened fellow sprang to his feet and hurried across the short
space, eager to do anything to win the favor of the other.
"Do you know who shot that Indian?" asked the Tory, in an undertone.
"I haven't the least idea."
"It was Fred Godfrey; he is somewhere near. The shot sounded out
yonder"--pointing in the proper direction--"and, if you want to save
your life, you must go out and bring him in."
"I'll do it," said McEwen, catching like a drowning man at a straw.
He turned about to start upon his strange errand, when Golcher commanded
him to stop.
"How are you going to do it?"
"Catch him by the neck and heels, and drag him along."
"Don't you see the Senecas are starting off to hunt him up?"
It was true. The red men quickly recovered from the shock, and, knowing
who fired the shot, were stealing off into the woods in search of the
youth, who had given proof of his presence near them.
Almost every one was able to tell the point whence came the familiar
bullet, and it will be understood that Fred Godfrey took his life in his
hand when he interposed to save his father.
"I don't believe they will find him," said Jake Golcher, alluding to the
Senecas, who were moving off in the darkness; "but you can join him,
because he takes you for a friend; go out in the woods, signal to him,
and when you find him, get him to come nigh enough to be catched. You
can do it, and if you succeed, you shall be spared. Don't think," added
the Tory, significantly, "that because we let you jine in the hunt you
can slip off in the dark."
"Oh, I never thought of such a thing," protested the New Englander. "I
always keep my promise, and I'll bring him back."
"There isn't one of these folks that can get away, for the Senecas are
all around us. Gray Panther will soon be here with twenty more, and then
we shall have 'em all."
If this were the case, Habakkuk might well have asked why Golcher wished
him to join in the search. But if such a question came to the mind of
McEwen he did not utter it.
"If you try to run away you'll be brought back here and tomahawked
inside of half an hour; do your duty, and I'll take care of you; after
you get out there in the dark you can signal to him in such a way that
he'll show himself, and then you must prove your smartness by getting
him to come with you to some p'int where we can pounce onto him. Do you
understand?"
"It's all as plain as the nose on your face," said Habakkuk.
"Then be off with you!"