THE ARMS OF THE DEAD.
There was no disguising the fact that Kate Merriweather was missing.
Harvey Catlett felt that the stealthy tread which had fallen upon his
ears was that of her abductor, and he upbraided himself for what he
self-accusingly termed his inactivity.
It is true that the hawk cry which he construed into a preconcerted
signal had roused him to action; but the boat and its occupants, one of
whom was doubtless the settler's daughter, had left the shore. And he
had fired into the craft without thinking that his ball might find the
heart of the fair girl, and imperil his own life.
It was a startled group that surrounded the young scout, and almost
uncontrollable anger flashed in Oscar Parton's eyes. Kate had been
abducted during Catlett's hour on guard!
The fact was sufficient to give birth to a new and bitter forest feud.
But the young borderer avoided the lover's gaze, as he did not desire to
enter into a controversy which calmer moments would make appear
ridiculous.
With remarkable tact and secrecy the girl had been stolen from the couch
in the boat. Even Carl's wakefulness had failed to baffle the thief.
Since the scout's arrival a feeling of security had settled over the
camp, and the sleep of its inmates was deeper than it had been for many
nights.
The abductor probably knew this; but at any rate he had carried out his
scheme at a propitious moment.
In the exciting council that followed the abduction an hundred
suggestions were offered, to be rejected. Wolf Cap and his friend hardly
unsealed their lips, but listened attentively to all that was said.
"Now what say you, Wolf Cap?" said Abel Merriweather, appealing to the
tall man. "You have not said ten words about my dear child's peril, and
we know that you are a king in these forests; and you have said that you
would get us to Wayne or die in the attempt. For God's sake suggest some
plan of swift rescue, for we are tortured almost beyond endurance."
Slowly Wolf Cap turned upon the settler, who held his white-faced,
anguish-stricken wife to his bosom, waiting for a reply which he felt
would be freighted with salvation or doom.
"Talk to the boy, there!" he said, pointing to Harvey Catlett. "He was
on guard when _it_ happened. What he says will be done."
All eyes fell upon the youthful scout.
"I will save her if I can," he said quickly, and with determination.
"Wolf Cap must remain. You may need him. Pursue the journey; it may be
death to tarry here."
"And worse than that to proceed;" Mrs. Merriweather said.
"I think not, madam. Keep stout hearts in your bosoms. Mr. Parton, will
you follow me?"
"On the trail?" inquired the young man, to whom the question was
unexpected.
"Certainly, sir. I see that you have been thinking pretty hard of me
to-night."
Oscar Parton blushed.
"Forgive me," he said, putting out his hand. "We are apt to think
unadvisedly on the spur of the moment. I trust we shall be friends, and
work together in all things."
Catlett took the extended hand in a pledge of friendship, and pressed it
heartily.
"Come!" he said; "we must cross the river."
Parton turned to press the hands of his friends.
"No time for that," said Wayne's scout. "In these times we must say
farewell with our lips. We have lost time already."
He turned to the water's edge, and Kate's lover dropped Carl's hand to
follow.
"Can you swim?" asked Catlett.
"Certainly."
"Then here we go. Keep alongside of me and swim noiselessly."
A moment later the twain glided into the water, leaving an anxious group
on the shadowy shore.
Silently, so far as the form of swimming was concerned, the friends kept
together and approached the northern bank of the Maumee.
"Do you know who took the girl?" Catlett asked his companion.
"How should I?" was the question that met his.
Wayne's scout smiled.
"I thought that you might have formed an opinion," he said.
"No;" and then came the question, "what do you know about it?"
"Not much; but if she escapes us, the terror of these woods will see
her."
Oscar Parton's face became pale.
"Do you mean----"
He paused, as if afraid to utter the name.
"I mean that man!" said Catlett, as if his companion had finished his
sentence. "Jim Girty has caused more anguish in this part of the world
than the tomahawks and fire brands of a whole red nation. I believe that
John Darknight was here to-night, and he and the White Whirlwind have
been friends."
The whispered conversation grew still, for the gloomy shore was
discernible, and the thought of Kate Merriweather in the hands of the
greatest renegade in the northwest, was enough of itself to seal Oscar
Parton's lips.
A long fringe of woodland welcomed the swimmers, and they drew
themselves from the water. No noise save the plash of the ripples at
their feet broke the stillness, and the sound was so musical that they
could scarcely believe that the woods and the waves beautified a land of
death.
Wringing the water from their garments, the scouts inaugurated a search
for the trail, or, in other words, for the spot where the boat had been
drawn from the water.
A line of moonshine lay along the edge of the stream, and this underwent
a close examination, Harvey Catlett hunting down and his companion up
the river.
While Oscar Parton was not an experienced woodman, like his friend, the
mysteries of the trail were not great ones to him. He had been reared in
the forests, and from the very tribes that now sought his heart's blood
he had learned much of the science of tracking man and beast. He felt
proud of the notice which Catlett had taken of his woodcraft in
permitting him to search alone for Kate's trail, and he inwardly hoped
that he would have the good fortune to find it. The circumstance would
elevate him in the eyes of the young scout.
Now through the forest, and now back to the river, with its edging of
moonlight, the two men crept like ghosts, letting nothing escape them.
One could not distinguish the other for the dimly lighted distance that
lay between them, but preconcerted calls told from time to time that the
search had not been abandoned.
Oscar Parton began to despair. He had passed beyond the line of search
marked out by his companion and was on the eve of returning when he came
suddenly upon a canoe with its keel just beyond the reach of the tide.
The sudden discovery startled the trail hunter, and he was about to
advance upon and examine the craft, when a night owl flew by and swept
its cold wings across his face, as if to keep him back. But the youth
did not heed the omen of portending evil.
He crept to the seemingly stranded and abandoned craft, and peered over
its side.
What did he see? A dark object lying on the bottom, a tuft of feathers,
a face, deathly and covered here and there with clotted blood. He turned
away, and looked again before he saw that an Indian lay beneath his
gaze, rigid, as he believed, in death!
"This is the result of Catlett's shot," he said. "I thank God that his
bullet did not reach Kate's heart. The other abandoned the canoe here,
and Kate is with him somewhere in the forest."
As he uttered the last word he touched the Indian, and what was his
surprise to see the limbs move and a flash light up the deathly eyes.
Oscar Parton saw the terrible embrace that was preparing for him, and
tried to avoid it; but the red arms flew up as if impelled by electric
mechanism, and closed around his body.
He struggled and tried to signal his companion, but in vain; his face
was pressed to his foe's, and he felt the death grip of the Wyandot
crushing out his very life.
But for all that, he tried the harder to free himself from the loathsome
grip. Was his young life to be given up so ignominiously? And that, too,
with Kate Merriweather's fate veiled by obscurity? The thought was
awful, horrid.
Not a word fell from the Indian's lips; the young hunter did not know
that the scout's ball had passed through the cheek, mangling the tongue
whose words had been heard in the council and on the trail.
The struggle with the dying went on, and, as was natural, the canoe was
pushed nearer the river, until the tide caught it and it was afloat! Out
into the starlight went the craft with the combatants on board; down the
stream toward the rapids, and each succeeding moment farther from
assistance by the white scout.
All things must end, and life, like the rest, reaches the shadow of
death. A sudden gurgling in the throat, a quivering of the limbs,
announced to Oscar Parton that his enemy was dead. Then again he tried
to escape; but the limbs did not relax; they seemed destined to hold him
there forever.
"God help me!" he groaned. "Must I die now, and in the arms of a dead
Indian?"
The situation was so tainted with the horrible that the youth almost
gave up in despair, and the boat swept down the river.
But help reached him at the eleventh hour. The boat was checked in its
course, and he heard voices above the dead arms that, like great cords
of steel, held him down. He groaned to tell some one, he knew not who,
that he still lived, and then he felt the Indian's arms torn apart. He
was saved.
With an ejaculation of joy at his deliverance the young settler looked
up, to start with a cry of amazement. For the canoe that lay against his
own contained a brace of Indians, plumed and painted for the warpath!
From the clutches of the dead into those of the living did not seem to
Oscar Parton, at that hour, a change for the better.
He could not resist, for his rifle lay on the river bank, and before he
could collect his ideas he was lifted from his boat into that of his
captors'.