“He’s a plucky young cuss, ain’t he?” said Boone, in a whisper to
Kenton, when he heard the bold defiance of the Indian warrior.
“The Wolf Demon will make mince-meat out of him ef he puts his claws
onto him,” replied Kenton, in the same cautious whisper that Boone had
used.
“I wonder if the spook will come?” said Boone.
“I reckon not; them things never come when they’re expected. They alers
take their own time,” returned Kenton.
“How easy we could ‘rub’ him out now, eh?” Boone observed, suggestively.
“I’m afeard it would bring a hull grist of his relations down on top of
us, thick as skeeters in a swamp,” said Kenton.
“That’s so.”
A movement on the part of the Indian put a stop to their conversation,
and eagerly they bent their eyes upon him.
After pronouncing his war-like defiance, the warrior, with his tomahawk
in one hand and his keen-edged scalping-knife in the other, remained
motionless as a bronze statue.
Full five minutes he waited.
His eager eye, quick and piercing as the eye of a hawk, surveyed the
forest before him.
He heard each rustling leaf that stirred in obedience to the soft
night-wind’s commands; the noise of the pinions of the owl, winging
its nocturnal flight through the dim aisles of the great, green wood;
the cry of the tree-toad; the chirrup of the cricket, deep down in the
earth. But, none of these stirred the senses of the Indian. He knew the
voices of the night full well, for he was a child of the forest and had
slept many an hour beneath the shadows of the spreading boughs.
He listened for a sound that he heard not--the tread of the great gray
wolf, who wore the face of a man.
Impatient, the warrior uttered a guttural exclamation.
Again he addressed the silence and the gloom, called for the dread
being to appear, at whose approach all living things of the earth or
air fled.
“The warrior is weary of waiting. If the Wolf Demon is in the thicket
let him come forth. The White Dog will strip off his hide, or else the
Wolf Demon shall take his scalp and mark the totem of the Red Arrow on
his breast.”
But the silence and the gloom replied not to the bold defiance.
After a pause of a few moments the warrior uttered a contemptuous
exclamation.
“The Wolf Demon should wear the skin of the muskrat; he skulks in the
dark and fears to meet his foe face to face.”
The chief turned upon his heel and thrust his scalping-knife into his
girdle as if to depart.
One single step he made, and then a sound fell upon his ears that made
him pause; made him draw the keen-edged knife again from his belt; made
him prepare for battle.
The quick ear of the Indian--trained from infancy to note the noises of
the forest, the plain and river--heard a stealthy step prowling through
the thicket.
The noise came from behind him. Quick as thought the warrior turned and
faced the point from whence the noise proceeded.
No form stepped from the timber into the little glade, whereon the soft
moonbeams fell, but the Indian still heard the sound of the stealthy
steps.
The steps seemed to come no nearer, and yet the sound grew no fainter.
_Whoever was within the wood was circling around the Indian as if to
attack him in the rear, and by surprise._
The chief guessed the truth, and as the unknown foe moved, he moved.
Slowly he turned, keeping his face always in the direction from whence
came the sound of the steps.
The two borderers, concealed in the thicket, watched the movements of
the Indian with astonishment.
When he assumed the attitude of defense and drew again the knife, Boone
nudged Kenton.
“He hears something,” he whispered.
“’Pears like it,” Kenton replied.
And as they watched the Shawnee, they, too, heard the sound of stealthy
steps approaching them.
They noted that, as the steps approached, the face of the chief seemed
to follow the direction of the steps.
At once the Indian-fighters guessed the truth; guessed that the
terrible Wolf Demon, lurking in the thicket, was circling around the
chief, eager to spring upon him unawares.
The stealthy steps came nearer and nearer to the concealed men.
Boone, stretched out so near to Kenton that he touched him, felt that
the stout borderer was trembling like an aspen leaf; and, to speak the
truth, the blood in Boone’s veins was running cold with horror.
There, not a dozen paces from them, within the thicket, they saw the
terrible form of the Wolf Demon.
With stealthy step he moved through the wood, his eyes glaring, like
coals of fire, upon the Indian warrior. In his paw he carried the fatal
tomahawk that had brained so many Shawnee chieftains.
The terrible form was moving in a circle around the warrior. But the
Indian was on his guard, and, guided by the sound of the stealthy
steps, kept his front always to his foe.
The Wolf Demon completed the circle, and then, as if fully satisfied
that he could not take the warrior by surprise, came slowly from the
thicket and stood within the open space; not, though, in the soft light
of the moonbeams, but half hid by the shadows thrown by the forest
monarchs that hemmed in the little glade.
The keen eyes of the Indian detected the appearance of the terrible
form.
The light of fierce determination shone upon the face of the Shawnee
warrior, and firmly he grasped his weapons and waited for the onset of
the foe.
Boone and Kenton, in breathless suspense, watched from their leafy
covert, eager to see the issue of the contest that was, apparently, so
near at hand.
A few seconds only the Wolf Demon paused within the friendly shadows of
the wood; then, with the swiftness of forked lightning, he leaped upon
the Shawnee warrior.
Bravely the Indian met the assault. With his tomahawk he parried the
blow aimed at his head, and, at the same moment, drove his long knife,
up to its haft, in the side of the phantom foe; but, the glittering
blade met no flesh in its passage, and not a single drop of blood
dimmed the brightness of the steel.
The thrust of the Shawnee chieftain cost him dear, for, ere he could
withdraw his knife again, the tomahawk of the Wolf Demon descended upon
his head. By a quick motion of his own ax he partly parried the blow,
but the force of the stroke bore him over backward to the earth.
With a howl of triumph the Wolf Demon planted his foot upon the
warrior’s breast, and the glittering tomahawk gleamed before his eyes,
raised to give the death-blow.
The warrior felt that he was lost.
The death-note of his nation broke from his lips.
Then, forth from the timber, from the direction in which the Indian
village lay, came the Shawnee girl, Le-a-pah.
She had arrived upon the scene of conflict just in time to witness the
discomfiture of her lover.
With outstretched arms and a cry of horror--regardless of her own
life--she rushed forward to save her lover from the edge of the fatal
tomahawk, which was raised to drink his blood.
The paw of the Wolf Demon which clutched the tomahawk remained poised
in the air as the girl advanced. The blow descended not upon the
unprotected head of the prostrate man.
The phantom form, motionless as one of the forest oaks, glared upon the
Indian girl with its eyes of fire as if struck dumb with horror.
It was a startling tableau.
The scouts looked on with awe-struck eyes. They expect each instant to
see the tomahawk descend, and the Indian girl fall lifeless at the blow.
Steadily for a few moments the Demon form glared at the girl, and then,
taking its foot from the breast of the down-trodden chief, it retreated
backward with slow steps, toward the forest, still, however, keeping
its eyes upon the face of the girl as though under the influence of
some terrible enchantment.
The Indian chief, hardly able to realize that he was saved from the
death that but a moment before seemed so certain, made no effort to
rise, but appeared transfixed with horror.
The Wolf Demon gained the shadow of the thicket, and then--as if the
spell that had bound him had been broken--with a terrible cry, that
rung through the forest like the wail of a lost soul, doomed forever to
eternal fires, he vanished amid the darkness.
The cry of the Wolf Demon froze the blood of his hearers with horror.
The girl, with a sob of terror, sunk down by the side of the young
chieftain.
Rising, the Shawnee warrior tenderly lifted the light form of Le-a-pah
from the greensward.
“Light of my heart, thou hast saved the life of the red chief!” cried
the warrior.
“Le-a-pah could not bear the thought that her lover should seek the
terrible Wolf Demon in the wood; she followed in his track to urge him
to return,” said the maiden.
“The White Dog has tried to win Le-a-pah. If he has failed to kill the
Wolf Demon, it is because the Great Spirit wills that he shall not die
by the hand of a red-man.”
“Let us seek my father. I will beg him to release you from the cruel
task.”
Then the chief and the maiden left the glade.
After a few minutes Boone and Kenton came from their hiding-place.
“Now, let’s look for Lark,” said Boone. “I’ve a thought that he has met
this terrible Wolf Demon when he was hyer afore, and that the sight has
made him mad.”
The two left the glade, and to their surprise found they stood before
the hollow oak which had served them as a rendezvous when in the wood
before.
At the foot of the oak they found Lark’s cap. As Boone picked it up, it
felt moist.
He looked at his hand.
It was stained with blood.
“By heaven!” he cried, in horror. “Lark has been killed, and perhaps by
the Wolf Demon!”