OVER THE PRECIPICE!
The minutes—ten—thirty—sixty, dragged slowly by, and Clancy Vere knew
naught of them. All this time he had hung by a cord between this life
and the next; but he comprehended it not. He was still insensible.
The wind increased in force until it swayed the great tree from which he
was suspended, and swung him backward and forward, pendulum-like, over
the turbid, roaring flood below.
Still he knew it not.
By and by a lithe, dark form, with great fiery eyes and ravenous jaws
drew its dark length out of the cover of a thicket near by, and creeping
stealthily along the ground, ascended the tree, and crouched menacingly
on a branch directly above him.
It was a panther.
For ten minutes the terrible brute eyed him with its red, fiery eyes,
and then, settling further back on its haunches, prepared to pounce upon
him.
Still he knew not his peril!
Closer down on the branch of the tree crouched the panther, its great
red eyes seeming fairly to blaze, while its long tail waved to and fro,
lashing first one of its sleek, shining sides and then the other.
It was all ready to spring—in an instant it would dart from its perch on
the limb and shoot like an arrow down upon its swaying prey; every
muscle of its lithe body was contracted. One breath—and then?
There was a dull, cutting sound, as a tense-drawn bow-string was jerked
straight, and a long, slender arrow came whizzing out of a copse near at
hand, and, pierced to the heart, the panther rolled off of the limb and
fell quivering to the ground at the very moment when its victim seemed
so secure and its triumph so complete. Its powerful limbs straightened
out, and the ravenous brute was dead.
In a moment a form emerged stealthily from the thicket and crept across
the opening to the foot of the tree.
It was Bear-Killer!
His ugly face still bled from the effects of the kick he had received
from the young hunter a couple of hours before. His purpose in returning
so soon to the scene of his late discomfiture and the death of his
companions, is easily surmised when the reader remembers that he was as
vindictive and vengeful as a fiend.
He gave the panther a kick with the toe of his moccasin, and saw at once
that it was quite dead.
“The panther would cheat the red-man out of his revenge,” he said,
savagely. “It must not be so. Nothing can save him now. He must die! The
revenge of Bear-Killer is near at hand. The white hunter’s time has
come.”
As the Indian ceased speaking, he drew his tomahawk, and stepped back a
few paces where his aim at the head of the swinging and senseless young
hunter would be true and certain.
He noted the distance accurately with his practiced eye, and poised his
weapon.
“How quick he will die!” he muttered. “How easy Bear-Killer will slay
him!”
“Bear-Killer will not slay him!” said a deep voice, close at his side;
and a heavy hand was laid on his arm, so suddenly and with such force
that the tomahawk fell from his grasp and half buried itself among the
leaves at his feet.
Bear-Killer turned with a sharp grunt of rage and surprise. His
mutilated face expressed nothing, but his small, baleful eyes
scintillated like those of a cowed and baffled wolf.
The hand on his arm tightened its hold, and the deep, stern voice
repeated authoritatively:
“Bear-Killer will not slay him!”
The speaker was an Indian, tall and massive in build, and manifestly the
superior of Bear-Killer in strength.
His dress and equipments indicated him to be a chief. Bear Killer seemed
to recognize his superiority, either of rank or strength, or both.
It was Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, who had but just now made his escape from the
cabin of Emmett Darke, and the terrible power which he believed Vinnie
possessed; and he was making his way back through the forest toward the
Indian village, when he discovered Bear-Killer in the act of
consummating his dreadful vengeance on the unconscious white man.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah recognized this white man at a glance.
He knew it was Clancy Vere.
And he had particular reasons for not wishing Bear-Killer to become his
slayer.
Perhaps his chief reason was that he wanted to put the young hunter to
death himself.
He was aware that Clancy Vere was his successful rival in the affections
of Vinnie Darke, or Sun-Hair, as he was wont to call her.
Jealous and vindictive as he was, this was sufficient to make him hunt
his pale-faced rival to the ends of the earth, if he could not compass
his death without.
Many times when he had seen Clancy go to the hunter’s cabin, had he
vowed in his fierce, jealous rage to kill him, but something had
heretofore always intervened to baffle him; but now he was exultant. The
time for which he had so long waited had come. The young hunter was
bound and insensible in his power. He asked nothing more. His triumph
seemed almost complete. His discomfitures and rebuffs at Vinnie’s hands
that afternoon had more than ever determined him to wreak vengeance on
her lover, since he stood in too wholesome awe of the lovely magician to
think for a moment of again attempting to obtain forcible possession of
her person—at least not at present.
With a sudden movement, Bear-Killer wrenched himself free from the
chief’s grasp, and faced him half angrily, at the same time picking up
the tomahawk out of the leaves at his feet.
“Why does the chief interfere?” he asked.
“Because,” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, “he would slay the pale-face hunter
himself. He has cause for revenge!”
“And has not Bear-Killer cause for revenge?” the Indian almost yelled.
“Look at his face! Yonder white man did this. The pain is like a
thousand tortures. What says the chief? Has he greater cause for revenge
than Bear-Killer?”
“The chief has greater cause for revenge than Bear-Killer,” said
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah.
“He has not!” said the Indian, decisively. “Bear-Killer will not be
cheated out his vengeance! He saved the pale-face from the panther that
he might kill him himself!”
“And the chief has saved him from the vengeance of Bear-Killer that _he_
might have _his_ revenge!” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with a grim, devilish
smile. “Let the warrior wait, and he shall see the vengeance of a
chief.”
He advanced toward the tree; and, as he neared it, his gaze fell on the
dead and horribly mangled bodies of the savages who had fallen before
the terrible charge of the Phantom Rider.
The undergrowth had concealed them from his view until now.
He started back with a loud cry of surprise and wonder.
“Did he do it?” he asked, pointing toward the swaying white man.
“No,” said Bear-Killer, in a voice that was half a gasp. “No; it was—”
“Who then?” interrogated the chief, in an awed whisper.
“The Spirit Warrior.”
“_The Spirit Warrior!_”
The chief reiterated the words in a dazed sort of way, like one under
some subtle spell, while for an instant a shudder seemed to convulse his
massive frame, causing it to shake like an aspen.
“Yes,” said Bear-Killer, “it was the Spirit Warrior—the spirit of the
outcast chief, Meno. When will Meno’s vengeance be complete?“
“When Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and all his braves are no more! When the sons of
the red-men who tortured their own chief to death are all numbered with
the dead! Then, and not before, will the vengeance of the outcast and
murdered sachem, Meno, be complete. Every day brings it nearer the end!”
The two Indians started as though a keen-edged knife had pierced their
vitals. Then they stood transfixed with fear, staring into each other’s
eyes as if to inquire the source of the answer that had come to
Bear-Killer’s question almost before it had left his lips.
The tones of the voice that had spoken the words were hollow, and the
weird and terrible menace seemed to be borne to them on the winds from
afar off, in a wild, ghastly chant that thrilled every fiber of their
superstitious beings with a vague horror that they could not shake off.
The dismal wailing of the wind through the forest trees, the sullen roar
of the storm which had set in a little while before, and the monotonous
dashing of the cataract below, all combined to inspire them with a sort
of awed dread, that the spirit voice, crying out to them above the crash
of the wind and storm, augmented into a wild, ungovernable fear.
For several moments, the two Indians stood silent and motionless,
neither daring to speak or stir.
For a few seconds the wind was hushed and the dashing storm seemed to
have spent its fury.
Then in an instant it seemed as if the storm demon had sent forth all
his forces of wind and sleet. Trees were blown over, limbs were flying
hither and thither, and the wind increased to a perfect tornado, wailing
and shrieking like a regiment of fiends. The Indians saw that the white
man was swinging to and fro at a fearful rate. It seemed as though the
lasso must break at every oscillation. He vibrated backward through a
space of fully twenty feet. They could not keep their footing, and were
obliged to throw themselves prostrate on the ground.
High above the fearful roar, and crashing of uprooted trees and fallen
limbs, loud and clear above the shrieking of the wind, was borne to them
again the voice of Meno, the Spirit Warrior:
“Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah beware! Meno’s vengeance will overtake him. He
will die a more horrible death than even his devilish mind can
comprehend! Let him beware!”
The two Indians remained motionless upon the earth, trembling at every
joint. Although giant trees were being uprooted on every hand and
massive limbs were falling all around them, they were unharmed.
Clancy Vere’s peril was imminent.
The tree, from a branch of which he was suspended, groaned and cracked
under the force of the storm, threatening momentarily to break loose
from its place in the bank and go crashing over the precipice.
Even if the stout roots remained firm in their hold on the earth, the
cord by which he hung was liable to be jerked asunder at any oscillation
of his body; and he would shoot headlong down into the seething flood
underneath and be swept to destruction over the waterfall below.
A quarter of an hour passed, during which the two savages did not arise
from their recumbent position and the spirit voice did not again speak.
The tree remained firm and the lasso seemed to deride all attempts on
the part of the tempest to break it. It would crack, but it would not
part.
Thus far, Clancy Vere had been saved; but he was still unconscious, and
had not realized the terrible danger that had menaced him.
Soon the storm began to abate somewhat.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and Bear-Killer got upon their feet by-and-by, when the
fury of the storm was in a measure spent.
Their sharp sense of bearing had been keenly alert to catch any further
words from the Spirit Warrior. But they did not hear the terrible,
menacing voice again.
“It has gone,” said the chief.
“Yes,” assented Bear-Killer, in a tone of relief. “We shall hear it no
more to-day. It went away on the storm.”
“The vengeance of Meno is terrible!” said the chief, with a shudder.
“But we are safe now. Now for my revenge!”
“Stop,” said Bear-Killer. “We will draw lots. I, too have come here for
vengeance on the white hunter.”
The chief grunted a guttural and very unwilling compliance to this
proposition.
“We must hurry,” he said, “or he will be dead. He is almost dead now.”
Bear-Killer made a very small mark on the trunk of the tree.
“The one that throws his tomahawk the nearest to the mark wins,” said
he.
They took their places almost on the verge of the high bluff on which
they were standing.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah threw first.
His tomahawk buried itself in the tree-trunk, within half an inch of the
mark.
There was a baleful glow in Bear-Killer’s wolfish eyes as he poised his
weapon, a treacherous glitter that the chief did not fail to notice.
Just as the handle of the tomahawk was slipping out of his grasp, the
chief dealt him a powerful blow on the side of the head. He staggered a
moment and his body swayed to and fro as he tried to regain his balance
on the very edge of the bank. The next instant his wild death-yell came
up from below!