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Title: The Phantom Rider; or The Giant Chief's Fate _ Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 70
Author: Rolfe, Maro O.
Language: English
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CHIEF'S FATE ***
THE
Phantom Rider;
THE GIANT CHIEF’S FATE.
A Tale of the Old Dahcotah Country.
BY MARO O. ROLFE,
Author of Pocket Novel No. 47, “The Man Hunter.”
NEW YORK.
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
FRANK STARR & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS
I Vinnie’s Peril 9
II Clancy Vere and His Trouble 14
III Vinnie’s Stratagem 19
IV The Phantom Warrior 25
V The Maybob Twins 30
VI Out in the Storm 36
VII Over the Precipice! 41
VIII The giant’s Story 48
IX Lost in the Forest 56
X A Baffled Vengeance 61
XI A Welcome Visitor 67
XII The Forest Rose 75
XIII The Face at the Window 78
XIV Vinnie a Prisoner 81
XV What the Scouts Found 87
XVI The Phantom Rider! 91
XVII A Reunion of Hearts 95
XVIII Conclusion 100
THE PHANTOM RIDER;
THE GIANT CHIEF’S FATE.
CHAPTER I.
VINNIE’S PERIL.
The scene of our story is laid in the great North-west.
It was a bleak, windy day in November. The shrill blasts wailed through
the forest trees like the last despairing cry of a lost spirit, and gust
after gust beat and roared around the little log cabin standing so
silent and lonely, half buried in the midst of the Titanic oaks that
spread their long branches protectingly over its low roof, and whose
sturdy trunks environed it, seeming to keep silent and untiring guard
over its four rough walls.
The scene within the cabin was in striking contrast with the wild aspect
without.
It was a rude but homelike place, and despite the chinked walls and
rough furniture, there was such an air of plain comfort as one might
expect to see in the abode of the sturdy western pioneer.
A young girl sat by a table engaged in embroidering a broad strip of
dressed deer-skin with fancifully colored beads and quills—a blue-eyed,
slender-looking little woman with shining masses of golden-brown hair
falling unconfined about her small, shapely head, and down over her
shoulders until it reached the waist of her dress, which fitted her
willowy form to perfection, and whose ample folds half concealed, half
disclosed a small, neatly-clad foot and well-turned ankle.
Her sunny blue eyes held a soft, loving light, and a bright smile played
continually upon her dainty face and around her rosy little mouth, with
its ripe lips half parted from the rows of small white teeth.
But the azure eyes could flash with courage and determination, and the
pretty mouth could be hard and stern with its strawberry lips tightly
drawn and its tiny, gleaming teeth hard-set.
The settler’s daughter was very lovely, and she possessed a nerve and
courage far beyond her sex.
A tall, powerfully-made man of fifty stood near the great wide-mouthed
fire-place, in which a ruddy blaze leapt and glowed fantastically,
shedding a pleasant radiance over the homely place that could not but be
grateful to one who, like Emmett Darke, was preparing to leave it and go
out into the wind and cold of the chill November day. But the settler,
long used to the perils of border life, thought little of this.
His sharp gray eye and firm through pleasant mouth bespoke indomitable
courage and strength of will; and as he stood there in the red glow of
the dancing firelight, buckling on his deer-skin belt in which he thrust
the borderman’s trusty companion, a long, keen-edged hunting-knife, with
a brace of heavy pistols, he looked the personification of the ideal
hunter of the far western wilds.
A huge blood-hound lay on the floor at his feet—a large, red-eyed
creature with white, gleaming teeth—a brute that might be a true and
faithful friend, but could not but be a terribly dangerous enemy.
The object in the room most likely to attract the attention of a casual
observer was a small square box of polished wood, standing on the table.
Besides the tall clock ticking in a corner, this casket was the only
visible thing that bore evidence of having been made by hands more
skilled than those of the settler, or with tools other than those common
implements ever ready at the pioneer’s grasp, the ax and the auger.
What this curious little box contained, will appear hereafter.
Soon the hunter’s preparations were completed, and slinging a long
rifle, which he had taken down from its place on three pegs in the wall,
across his shoulders, he turned to his daughter who had wound the soft
deer-skin belt, upon which she had wrought innumerable fancy devices,
gracefully about her waist and shoulders, and stood regarding him with a
merry light sparkling in her blue eyes.
“How do I look, papa?” she asked. “Like some dusky forest princess?”
And she finished by placing a jaunty turban in which were fastened
several bright-colored plumes, which drooped down until they touched her
beautiful golden hair, coquettishly on her head.
“More like a regular angel, wings and all!” he exclaimed, admiringly:
for Emmett Darke loved his beautiful motherless child more than his
life. “That hair and those eyes of yours don’t look very Injiny.
Wouldn’t that red lover of yours go wild if he saw you now? I don’t
wonder he’s half-crazy and calls you ‘Sun-Hair!’ How about that
youngster, Clancy Vere, eh, Vinnie? Has he an eye to beauty?”
The maiden blushed rosy red; but the laughing eyes became thoughtful in
a moment.
“Do you know, papa, that I often think of him—the Indian? Oh, if he
should come some day when you are gone! He is wild and bloodthirsty and
his passions are ungovernable. He has taken a solemn vow to make me his
wife!”
“He shall never fulfill that vow!” cried the old man, with a dangerous
light in his cold gray eyes. “I’ll have his life, first! If he comes
here again I’ll give him a free pass to the happy hunting-grounds!”
Emmett Darke’s face was almost white with rage, and he brought the heavy
stock of his long rifle down on the floor with a sharp bang.
“Just so sure as that red devil has the misfortune to be caught anywhere
near my cabin, I will shoot him down like the coward he is! My daughter
is never to become a squaw, eh, Vinnie?”
“Never, father! Never will I become the Indian’s wife! I would sooner
shed my own heart’s blood!”
She spoke so calmly and yet determinedly that her father half-shuddered.
He knew that she meant every word, and he breathed an inward prayer that
God would watch over his lonely child and guard her from all peril
during his absence.
The hunter stood silent and motionless for a few moments, thinking
intently. Arousing himself at length, he said, turning to the
blood-hound, who was on his feet in an instant, running around him and
licking his hands:
“Come, Death! We must go.”
In a few minutes they had passed out, and were walking rapidly and
silently through the forest.
As Darke went away, a face appeared among the thick bushes close by the
cabin—a red face, hideously daubed with black and yellow paint, with
long, coarse black hair, hanging down the sunken jaws, and fierce black
eyes flashing triumph and exultation as the hunter disappeared from
view. Darke did not see this face, and the bushes closed over it in a
moment, concealing it as suddenly as it had appeared.
After her father was gone, Vinnie went and stood before the fireplace,
looking down into the red mass of leaping flames.
She was deeply buried in thought, and she heard no sound save the
hissing of the fire and the wailing of the wind around the corners of
the cabin, and through the bare branches of the great oaks outside.
She little thought what a lovely picture she made as she stood thus,
silent and motionless—one might almost imagine breathless—with a dreamy,
far-off look in her soft eyes, and the glancing blaze lighting up her
fair face till she looked, in fantastic guise, like some beautified
Fairy queen, some incomparable silvan goddess.
Rarely, radiantly lovely she appeared, strangely out of place in that
homely room.
She was unconscious of this—unconscious, also, of another presence in
the cabin until the back-log fell suddenly with a dull thud, throwing
out a shower of red sparks and arousing her on the instant from the fit
of abstraction into which she had fallen.
With a quick start, she turned her head and saw a tall form close behind
her—so near that it might easily have touched her.
It was the form of an Indian, powerful and massive. The face was the
same that had peered through the shrubbery at Emmett Darke a few minutes
before.
There was a strange light glowing in the fierce eyes fixed so steadily
on the lovely face before him—a look of wild passion as dangerous as it
was intense.
The savage did not speak nor even stir; but the hard, cruel lines on his
forehead and about his mouth relaxed a little as he tried to twist his
ugly visage into the semblance of a smile—a semblance that was even more
loathsome than its habitual scowl—that was nearer the leer of an
exultant fiend than the smile of a human being.
Vinnie’s face was deathly pale, and her heart seemed for a moment to lay
still in her bosom; but she tried to meet the gaze of those devilish
eyes calmly. She stood quite still, looking into the cruel face, but she
dared not trust her voice.
The Indian spoke at length, in a tone harsh and rasping, like the snarl
of some wild animal:
“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah has come for his squaw. Sun-Hair is very beautiful.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is a mighty warrior. He has always loved the white
maiden since he met her in the forest many moons ago. The great chief’s
heart has been burning for Sun-Hair. He has prepared his wigwam. It is
hung around with the scalps of his slain foes. Sun-Hair will be a queen.
The Indian women will bow down their heads in shame before the beautiful
Sun-Hair! Is she ready? Will she go with the great chief? His warriors
are waiting to see their queen!”
For a moment Vinnie did not speak, then the words came clear and sharp
from her white lips:
“No! I will never go!”
The chief’s face was fairly demoniac in an instant—the sickish leer was
gone, and the savage teeth shone through the drawn lips in two white,
gleaming rows. He advanced with a quick motion, and laid his hand
roughly on her arm.
“Come!” said the harsh voice, “Sun-Hair must go!”
CHAPTER II.
CLANCY VERE AND HIS TROUBLE.
“Here I am!”
It was a young man who spoke, standing on the bank of a small stream
that had its course through the forest at a point about two miles
distant, as a bird flies, from Emmett Darke’s cabin.
He was tall and well-formed, with hazel eyes and dark-brown hair. His
face was clear-cut and handsome, open and frank in its expression, while
it indicated a goodly stock of firmness and courage.
This is Clancy Vere, the young hunter, an allusion to whom had brought
the rich blood to Vinnie’s face that very afternoon.
He was clad in a complete suit of dressed deer-skin, elaborately
ornamented about the shoulders with bright-colored beads and quills, his
hunting-shirt being gathered about his waist with a wide belt from which
protruded the stock of a heavy revolver and the silver-mounted hilt of a
long bowie-knife, while a powder-horn and bullet-pouch were slung by a
leathern cord under his left arm.
As he spoke, he dropped the butt of his rifle, a trim,
beautifully-mounted weapon, until it rested on the turf at his feet;
then he stood leaning on it for a long time, looking intently down into
the depths of the eddying stream before him.
He was thinking—of a girl with blue eyes and golden brown hair—of Emmett
Darke’s beautiful daughter, Vinnie.
Clancy Vere loved Vinnie devotedly, and not hopelessly, she had led him
to think; though, as yet, he had never made any formal declaration of
his passion.
Still, as a look is oftentimes fraught with more meaning than the most
high-sounding speech, and the pioneer’s daughter had not, upon certain
occasions which he could recall, been chary of these looks, Vere was
very far from being despondent.
He lived at a small settlement a half-dozen miles away, and had set out
that morning to visit the cabin of the hunter. His errand there may be
easily surmised.
He had proceeded thus far on his way without adventure worthy of note,
and intended to cross the stream in a canoe that he knew Darke kept
concealed in the undergrowth at a place a hundred yards below the spot
where he now stood.
So intent was he upon his musings, that he heard no sound save the
rippling of the water and the roar of the wind through the trees.
He did not see the bushes part close behind him and a dusky form emerge
from its concealment, to be followed by another, then another, until six
Indians had entered the little grassy space in which he was standing,
and began stealthily to take different positions around him until his
chances of escape were cut off on all sides.
He was brought to realize his situation in a moment.
A chorus of shrill, exultant yells rung out on every hand.
He turned on the instant, and his quick eye measured the strength of his
savage foes. They were too near at hand for him to bring his rifle to
bear; but gripping it firmly around the barrel, he brought the ponderous
stock down on his nearest assailant, crushing in his skull like an
egg-shell.
There was a muffled thud as the deadly weight fell a second time, and
another savage sunk over on the ground without a groan.
An Indian was creeping up stealthily behind him. As Vere raised his
clubbed rifle a third time, throwing it high above his head, in order
that the blow might be more effective, the savage, who had been
crouching down on the ground a moment close beside him, sprung high in
the air, and clutching the gun-barrel near the lock, wrenched it from
the young hunter’s hands just as it began to descend.
This quick, hard pull upon the weapon, which he gripped with all his
strength, caused him to stagger a trifle, and before he could regain his
footing and draw his bowie-knife, the three remaining Indians sprung
upon him and bore him to the ground.
In a moment his elbows were pinioned behind his back, and his weapons
were transferred from his belt to those of his captors.
They pulled him roughly to his feet, and an Indian took his place on
either side, leading him along by the arms. The brave who had disarmed
him walked behind, while the remaining savage, who was evidently a
warrior of some importance, to judge from the number of eagle’s feathers
which ornamented his head and the many trophies of the war-path and the
chase which were hung about his neck and secured to his belt, led the
way up the stream, pausing ever and anon to give some guttural command
in his native dialect to his followers, who clutched their captive’s
arms firmly, as if they feared that, bound and almost helpless as he
was, he would attempt to escape.
They had seen evidence of his prowess, and wisely concluded that he was
a safer prisoner well guarded than when allowed to walk alone.
For an hour they kept on, over fallen trees and heaps of rock, through
tangled masses of undergrowth, now bearing a little to the right, then
to the left; but always keeping within hearing of the stream, whose
monotonous murmurings seemed to grow louder and hoarser as they
proceeded, until they changed to a wild, sullen roar, like the impetuous
rushing and dashing of a cataract.
At length, after a long silence, the leader of the party turned toward
Vere and said, impressively:
“Does the pale-face hear the song of the waterfall? It is chanting his
death-song! The black waters laugh because they will swallow up the
pale-face!”
Soon the sun appeared through an opening in the leaden gray clouds that
had drifted lazily through the sky until they were gathered together in
a dark, lowering mass overhead, and its bright rays trembled for a
moment upon the surface of the water.
“See!” continued the Indian, pointing to the falls just visible through
the trees. “See the waters smile! They laugh because the red men will
give them a pale-face victim! Let the white man hear them sing! ‘Ha!
ha!’ they say, ‘the pale-face must die!’ It is his death chant! The
great Manitou is speaking through the laughing waters. He is happy with
his red children when a pale-face dies. The white hunter is brave. He is
not afraid to fight. But his heart will grow small within his bosom when
he must go down into the black waters—the river of death! Will he be
brave when he meets the unknown dangers of the dark valley? He will find
it hard to die now. He is young and the world looks bright to his eyes.
Perhaps a white woman will weep when he is dead. The Indian women have
mourned for their husbands and brothers when they have gone out to fight
the Long-knives and never returned. The laughing waters are crying aloud
for their victim. The white man must die!”
“We all must die,” said Vere, calmly, not caring to show the concern he
really felt. “Men have died before, why should I fear death?”
An expression of surprise flitted over the Indian’s painted face.
Few men could meet death so calmly.
The young hunter had resolved not to die without a desperate struggle;
but he preferred that his captors should think him resigned to his
fate—the horrible fate which seemed inevitable.
A few rods above the falls a tree grew far out over the water, rushing
madly to the cataract below.
The bank at this point was rough and jagged, its steep and rocky sides
jutting out full twenty feet above the black, roaring mass underneath.
The party halted here.
“The pale-face hunter’s feet must be tied,” said the Indian who had
spoken before. “He must not fight with the laughing waters.”
Producing a stout leathern thong, about twelve feet in length, one of
the savages advanced to coil it around the captive’s ankles.
As he stooped, Vere drew his foot back suddenly and planted it with
tremendous force squarely in his face, flattening his long nose and
knocking out several of his sharp white teeth.
The Indian rolled over on the ground with a wild screech.
The pain was terrible, and he lay for a moment, pressing his disfigured
face and giving utterance to a series of hoarse, agonized groans.
Then he sprung up suddenly with a wild yell of rage and vengeance.
He was upon Vere in an instant, his long fingers entwined in his hair
and his scalping-knife circling with lightning rapidity around his head.
The young hunter’s arms were securely pinioned.
He was utterly powerless in the red fiend’s hands.
Death—sudden and terrible—seemed certain; but he did not flinch.
His fearless eye was fixed on the Indian’s face, and his own did not
change when he felt the keen knife-point pricking the skin upon the
crown of his head.
He was not afraid to die.
He thought of the terrible, because unknown life beyond the grave—and of
Vinnie!
Would she weep when he was gone?
He trusted so, and stood calmly awaiting the great change.
CHAPTER III.
VINNIE’S STRATAGEM.
Vinnie’s face was very pale, but she did not cry out. A wild fear, an
awful terror, was tugging at her heart, but she would not give way to
it. She knew she would need all her native courage and coolness in the
ordeal which she foresaw she must endure.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s hand retained its rough grip on her arm, and his
harsh voice repeated:
“Come. Sun-Hair must go!”
Resistance would, she knew, be of no avail. It would only serve to
arouse the Indian’s passions to a still higher pitch of intensity—to
make him, if possible, still more demoniac, and still more determined
than ever to fulfill his vow, and carry out his intention to abduct and
bear her away to his wigwam.
She must have recourse to stratagem.
So, to gain time, she said as calmly as possible, but with a wild
throbbing at her heart which she tried in vain to still:
“So the great chief loves the pale-face maiden? He would make her a
queen? He would spend his whole life to make her happy? Is it not so?”
“Yes,” he said, eagerly. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah loves Sun-Hair as the bird
loves its mate. He will always make her happy. She shall never know what
it is to weep. Her life shall always be pleasant. It shall be like a day
when the green grass is new on the ground, and the dancing waters, freed
from their cold bonds of ice, are laughing in the bright sunlight.”
“And my life shall be like one long day in the bright spring-time?” she
said, as bravely as she could, smiling through all her fear.
“Yes,” again said the chief, with a searching look in her white face.
He had expected tears and opposition, and he received instead, smiles,
and apparent acquiescence, and he was surprised and partially thrown off
his guard.
“May be the white maiden will go with her Indian lover,” said Vinnie.
“Give her time to think. It is very hard for her to leave her home and
her kind old father. Does the chief think he can make Sun-Hair happier
than she has been here? Can he make her forget her father and her home?”
“Did not Ku-nan-gu-no-nah tell the beautiful Sun-Hair that she should be
a queen? She shall wear robes as dazzling as the light of the sun. She
need not work like the Indian women. She need do nothing but sit and
sing like a bird all day long. The red-women will bow their heads in
shame before her bright face, and the warriors will sing songs about her
beauty. They will think of their beautiful queen when they go on the
war-path, and they will always return with the scalps of their dead
enemies hanging in their belts. What more can Sun-Hair wish?”
“I think I will go,” said the girl, slowly. “Only give me time to
think.”
“Ugh! It is well!” grunted Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with another of his sickish
smiles. Then frowning darkly, and with a significant tap on the handle
of his tomahawk:
“But Sun-Hair no fool the chief! If she does he will kill her! She can’t
get away. Take care!”
The Indian let her free now; and he sat down on a low stool near the
door, as if half fearing some treachery on Vinnie’s part, but he was
pretty well assured, after all, that she would go with him without much
resistance. Vinnie stood for some time, striving to think of some plan
by which she might escape the Indian, who watched her every motion from
under his heavy, overhanging brows, as closely as a cat watches a mouse.
There was such a look of half-suspicious triumph on his dark face and in
his cruel eyes as is sometimes seen in the eyes of the panther, as it
sits quietly by, watching its prey, and suffering it to live and exult
in a few moments more of life that the moment of its annihilation, when
it comes suddenly and unlooked for, may be the harder to bear.
But the poor girl rejected plan after plan as impracticable. At one time
she thought of making some excuse to enter an adjoining apartment and
secure a pistol which she knew her father kept there; but she feared
that the savage would discover her intention and tomahawk her at once.
Then she contemplated making a rush for the door at the cabin and
escaping into the forest; but her reason told her that the chief would
overtake her before she was fairly outside the door.
At last, when she had nearly given up in despair, a thought suggested
itself to her brain—how, she never knew, it was so wild and strange—that
made her heart leap with a newborn hope—a hope that she might yet outwit
her captor and gain time until something—she know not what—should
intervene to save her from the fate he had marked out for her.
She sat down by the table and opened the small box of polished wood, of
which mention was made in our first chapter, the Indian watching her the
while from his place near the door.
This casket, on being opened, prove to be a small galvanic battery; and
Vinnie was but a moment preparing it for action.
When all was in readiness, she took a pair of electric slippers from a
drawer in the table and placed them beside the battery.
Then, knowing the superstition of the Indian race, she arose, and waving
her hands several times very slowly around her head, seemed to be
invoking a charm. Her eyes were fixed apparently on vacancy, and she
stood motionless for several minutes; then smiling sweetly, she turned
to Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, who had advanced to the center of the room, and
stood regarding her mystic performance with a sort of awed wonder, she
said in a low, soft voice, that sounded to him like the murmuring of a
distant brooklet:
“Does the chief know that the Great Manitou has given the white maiden a
mysterious power, greater than is possessed by any of the Indian
medicine-men? Would Ku-nan-gu-no-nah like to see evidence of the white
maiden’s power?”
The Indian stood quite still while she was speaking, with a look of
mingled doubt and awe on his face. At last he said in his harsh voice:
“Ugh! Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see what Sun-Hair can do. She is not a great
medicine-woman. There is but one who has a mighty power from the Great
Spirit, and that is Yon-da-do, the great conjuror of my tribe. Sun-Hair
can’t get away. The chief will kill her if she tries. Let
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see!”
“Let the chief look and be convinced!”
Vinnie attached the slippers to the conductors leading from the battery,
and set them side by side on the cabin floor.
Then, taking up her position behind the table, she commenced to operate
the machine slowly at first, then faster, until the slippers began to
skip about, dancing a sort of shuffle, which caused the Indian’s face to
take on a look of still greater wonder.
“See,” she said, turning the little crank faster, causing the magic
slippers to jump higher and oftener than before. “Do you longer doubt my
power? You, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, strong brave though you are, can not hold
those dancing moccasins when I command them to move!”
The chief’s face lighted up in an instant with a look of scorn and
contempt. No one had ever doubted his strength before. Surely he could
hold those skipping bits of leather.
“Look!” he said. “Let Sun-Hair see the chief hold them so fast they can
not tremble.”
He stooped down and raised them from the floor, holding one in each
hand.
He clutched them firmly, and then went on:
“See the chief hold them. A pappoose could do it. See—”
His words were cut short suddenly, the slippers dropped from his hands,
and with a wild shriek of terror, he ran to the further side of the
room.
He stood motionless several minutes, his dusky face the picture of blank
amazement, looking at the palms of his hands as if he would see what had
acted upon them with such powerful effect. He could not conceal his
chagrin as Vinnie said, tauntingly;
“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is a great brave. He is very strong. He can not hold a
pair of moccasins. They jump out of his hands, and he runs away like a
whipped dog! The big chief is very strong. What a warrior he must be!”
“It is a lie!” yelled the Indian, almost beside himself with rage and
mortification. “I _can_ hold the dancing moccasins!”
“Try it,” said the beautiful magician, sententiously. Ku-nan-gu-no-nah
advanced timidly, and took the slippers up daintily between his thumbs
and fore-fingers.
“Get a firm hold,” said Vinnie. “You will need all of your boasted
strength. Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, a great chief and a brave warrior, has said
that a pappoose could hold the dancing moccasins. Let us see if he can
do what a pappoose could do. He says that Sun-Hair has no mysterious
power, more terrible than that of the Indian medicine-man, Yon-da-do. He
will see. Is he ready?”
The savage gripped the magic slippers with all his strength, seeming
determined that this time he would give the fair conjuror no opportunity
to taunt him with lack of success.
“Ugh!” he grunted, “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is ready.”
“You have them fast now, have you?”
Vinnie could not repress a smile as he answered, clutching the electric
slippers tighter than before:
“Yes; they not stir now.”
She muttered a few words in a low tone, passing her hands backward and
forward before her face, and commanded the slippers to dance.
At the same instant she set the battery in action, and the chief’s
hands, acted upon by the electricity, which she had made more powerful
than before, seemed to clutch the slippers like a vise.
A horrible expression of mingled rage and pain crossed his distorted
face, and he gave utterance to a shrill scream of fear and agony that
might have been heard, so loud and resonant was it, fully a mile away.
At last Vinnie ceased to turn the machine, and Ku-nan-gu-no-nah reeled
back and sunk down in a corner of the cabin almost exhausted.
His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, his mouth twitched nervously,
his long, coarse black hair stood half-erect, and he trembled with an
awful, superstitious fear in every fiber of his being.
“What does the chief think now of the white maiden’s power?” asked
Vinnie. “What does he think of the little box and the dancing moccasins?
Where now is his vaunted strength? Can the great brave do what a
pappoose can do? Does he want to try again?”
“No! No!” panted Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with chattering teeth. “Sun-Hair is a
great conjuror. She has a power from the Great Spirit! She has a
_devil-box_, and moccasins such as are worn where the Long-knives go
when they die—where there is fire always! Hell, they call it. The white
maiden is a greater conjuror than Yon-da-do. She has a _devil-box_ and
_hell-moccasins_!”
At this moment there were sounds of footfalls outside the door. The
noise came nearer, and there was a sharp, scratching sound on the door
like that produced by some keen-pointed instrument.
Vinnie felt a terrible fear forcing its way to her heart.
“My God!” she thought. “What if it should be some of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s
warriors? Would they show me any mercy after the trick I have played on
their chief?”
The scratching noise was repeated, louder than before, and she could see
the heavy door tremble. With a white face, she stood awaiting—she knew
not what!
The Indian still cowered down in the corner, apparently heedless of what
was passing around him.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PHANTOM WARRIOR.
But it was not fated that Clancy Vere should die by the scalping-knife.
The Indian who had acted as the leader of the party leaped forward with
a sharp cry, and with a quick blow of his powerful hand, sent the knife
flying from the maddened brave’s grasp into the water tossing and
roaring twenty feet below.
“What would Bear-Killer do?” he said, giving the baffled savage a sudden
push that sent him staggering back against the tree. “Has he forgotten
the laws of our nation? Does he forget that the great chiefs have said
that when a number of warriors take a captive all shall have a share in
putting him to death?”
Bear-Killer was cowed; but he stood with lowering brows, glowering upon
the young hunter with a look of fierce hatred that made him appear, with
his dark face bruised and bleeding, absolutely diabolical.
“Wy-an-da is right,” he said, at length. “Bear-Killer forgot. The
pale-face must die hard! Bear-Killer must be avenged!”
“We will give the white hunter to the laughing waters,” said Wy-an-da.
“He must die!”
“He must die!”
The four Indians repeated these three ominous words in a hoarse chorus,
and began to circle slowly around the captive, brandishing their
tomahawks and knives furiously and screaming the wild scalp-halloo of
their tribe.
Several minutes passed thus, Vere standing in the circle of screeching
braves calm and unmoved; then all became suddenly silent, standing still
and dropping their hands by their sides as if moved by a common impulse.
“Is the pale-face ready to die?” asked Wy-an-da.
“I have said that I do not fear death!” replied the young hunter,
calmly. “I am ready!”
The last faint ray of hope was extinguished now. He was bound and
helpless—they could do with him as they would; and as calmly as possible
he resigned himself to his fate—the horrible fate that seemed
inevitable!
“Wy-an-da will tell the pale-face hunter how he must die,” said the
chief. “It is not a pleasant death. He will be afraid. His heart will
grow small within his bosom and his face will be white as the snow in
winter. He will not like to die so. Will he be brave at the last
moment?”
“I tell you I am ready to die!” shouted Vere.
He knew that the savage was trying to torture him, and he would not let
him see what pain it really gave him—the anticipation of this sudden and
terrible departure from the life that had just begun to seem so happy to
him.
“Why do you wait?” he added, stolidly. “I tell you I am ready!”
“It is well,” said Wy-an-da. “The white hunter is a brave man. He shall
die thus: he will be hung by a lasso, head downward, from the branch of
that tree there that reaches out over the laughing waters. Then the
Indian that can throw his tomahawk the truest will cut the lasso, and
the white man will fall down and the laughing waters will sweep him over
the rocks. Then his body will be dashed to pieces on the sharp stones
below! Is it pleasant to think of? Will the pale-face be brave?”
This speech was greeted by a chorus of satisfied grunts from the
savages.
A shudder ran through Vere’s frame and his spirits sunk as he heard the
chief pronounce his fearful doom; but it was only for a moment. Then he
appeared calm and apparently unmoved.
A more diabolical torture could not well be conceived.
It was terrible—this standing face to face with death; but the young
hunter showed no signs of fear.
Five minutes later he was swinging, head downward, over that black flood
hastening on with a wild roar to the precipice below.
The chill autumn wind, wailing in fitful gusts through the forest trees,
his body gave an oscillating motion, and it seemed, as he swayed at that
dizzy height, as if every vibration would precipitate him into the water
below.
After the lasso was securely fastened to the protruding branch, the
Indians drew back about twenty paces from their swinging victim and
prepared for their trial of skill in hurling the tomahawk.
Each was anxious to have the first throw.
At length it was decided that Wy-an-da should have the precedence.
He took his place with a confident air, like one who is assured of
success.
Carefully noting the distance, he drew his tomahawk back, and, taking
deliberate aim, gave it a quick jerk; and it went whirling out of his
hand.
They watched its flight eagerly.
It missed the lasso by six inches.
The swaying hunter was saved thus far.
He had been watching Wy-an-da as he only could look whose life hung on
the issue.
He closed his eyes as he saw the weapon whizzing through the air, and
awaited the end.
A tall Indian of massive frame stepped forward.
“O-wan-ton try,” he said.
He measured the space accurately with his keen eye; but his tomahawk
flew wide of its mark, burying itself to the eye in the limb to which
the lasso was secured.
The victim of the laughing waters was saved again.
Next came Wolf-Nail.
The young hunter watched him with a white face and a heart wild with
despair.
He stepped forward slowly, and hurled his tomahawk without much care.
The swinging cord was a difficult target.
Vere felt the lasso jerk, and thought the end had come.
But he was saved again.
The handle of the tomahawk struck the lasso, and the weapon glanced off
and fell with a muffled splash into the water.
Bear-Killer was the last to try.
He was yet half-wild with rage; and with the blood still streaming from
his disfigured face, he made ready to hurl his tomahawk, hoping to sate
his vengeance and send the young hunter to eternity.
Vere was looking at him, and his heart seemed for a moment to stop its
pulsations.
This time death seemed certain.
He saw that the red demon did not intend to throw at the cord.
He was taking deliberate aim at his head!
The young hunter saw him draw back his weapon, and closed his eyes.
There was a moment of terrible agony to the man vibrating, as it were,
between earth and eternity—and then all became dark!
He seemed to be shooting down—down—and he knew no more.
He had fainted.
Those few terrible moments of suspense—ages they seemed to him—had been
more than he could bear. The constantly tightening noose around his
ankles was excruciatingly painful, and the position in which he hung
caused the blood to flow to his head. None but a man young and strong
like Vere could have retained his consciousness so long as he had done.
Bear-Killer was exultant. A moment more, and his fiend-like longing for
vengeance would be satisfied.
He noted the distance carefully with his practiced eye, and with a grim
smile of triumph on his blood-streaked face, raised his tomahawk and
prepared to make the fatal throw.
Suddenly a wild, unearthly cry, like a prolonged wail, rung out on the
wind, sounding strangely ghastly above its moanings.
Bear-Killer’s tomahawk slipped from his grasp, and a sickly pallor
overspread his face, and those of his companions blanched to an ashen
hue.
The four Indians gave utterance to wild cries of fear and consternation.
“_The Spirit Warrior! The Spirit Warrior!_”
A white steed was flying across a small opening in the forest directly
toward them, and mounted upon its bare back, guiding it with neither
bridle nor reins, rode a ghastly human skeleton of gigantic proportions.
With cries of terror, the stricken little band of savages turned to fly.
On came the terrible Phantom Rider with the speed of the wind!
As it drew near, it sprung up suddenly, and standing upright on the back
of its flying steed, threw something round and black high in the air;
then, with another unearthly scream, rode on and disappeared in the
forest.
The thing went up with a hissing noise, a broad, brilliant streak of
flame marking its course, and then fell with a terrific explosion in the
very midst of the Indians.
Then there came a chorus of agonized shrieks, and three of the savages
were laid dead on the ground.
Bear-Killer escaped, and fled with a loud, terrified howl into the
forest.
The dead Indians were horribly mangled, and Wy-an-da’s head was blown a
rod from his body.
Then all was silent save the roaring cataract and soughing wind.
Not a being was in sight, save the unconscious one who swung by a small
cord between this life and the one beyond the grave!
CHAPTER V.
THE MAYBOB TWINS.
Emmett Darke went into the forest in search of game; and he was
successful, for in an hour’s time he had shot and dressed a large buck.
He only took the choicest portions of the deer, which he rolled
carefully up in the skin, leaving the remainder to the wolves, panthers,
and other beasts of prey that infested the forest. He bound the pelt
around the meat he had selected by means of deer-skin thongs through a
firmly tied loop, in which he thrust his gun-barrel; and throwing his
burden across his shoulder, set out for home.
He was very anxious to reach the cabin; for he could not keep his mind
from dwelling on his conversation with Vinnie that afternoon, and he did
not like to leave her alone longer than was necessary.
The blood-hound, Death, who had rendered his master valuable service in
securing the deer, trotted along after him, as if pleased with the idea
of returning to the cabin so soon.
The hunter had proceeded but a short distance, however, when he met with
an accident that nearly cost him his life.
As the afternoon advanced, the chill November wind blew harder and
colder, till its moanings changed to a fierce roar, and it was evident,
even to eyes less accustomed to weather signs than Darke’s, that a
fearful storm was approaching—one of those cold, gusty rains peculiar to
the North-west.
As he was passing a dead oak, whose barkless, decayed trunk and bare,
broken branches bore marks of the storms and winds of a hundred years,
he was startled by a loud crash overhead.
Looking up, he saw that a fearful gust of wind that just then swept
through the wood, blowing the dried leaves and twigs hither and thither
and everywhere in wild confusion, had broken off a massive limb, which
was falling with lightning velocity directly toward him. Dropping his
burden, he sprung aside, but though the movement saved his life, he did
not escape the full force of the blow.
The ponderous mass came whirling down, one end of it striking him on the
back of the head.
He reeled and staggered two or three steps, and then sunk down
insensible among the fallen leaves.
After surveying his fallen master a minute or two, the blood-hound
advanced and lay down by his side, as if to keep guard over him. For
several minutes he remained in this position, then probably not noting
any signs of vitality in the unconscious man, he arose, and, after
whining several times in a low key, the sagacious creature took the
sleeve of his hunting-shirt between his teeth and pulled it gently. This
action was repeated several times; and at last, receiving no reply from
his master, the faithful dog set out as fast as his feet would carry him
for the cabin.
Had he forsaken his master, or gone after assistance?
How long Darke remained unconscious, he knew not.
When consciousness returned, he found himself in a sort of cavern fitted
up as a hunter’s lodge, apparently, for great piles of skins were to be
seen in different parts of the place, and a couple of rifles leaned
against the rocky wall at one side, while a small keg, that evidently
contained powder, stood near by, half concealed by a deer-skin
hunting-shirt, which was thrown carelessly over it, with a bullet-pouch
and powder-horn secured to the belt.
He noticed also that the cave was divided into apartments, for a curtain
made of the skins of various wild animals was suspended from a cord
overhead.
A dull, hard pain in his head caused him to think of himself, and he now
saw, for the first time, that it was bandaged, and he was reclining on a
bed made of the pelts of the bear and the panther at one side of the
place.
If any further evidence was required to satisfy the hunter that the
place was inhabited, it was forthcoming in the shape of a savory odor of
broiling venison that was wafted from the inner apartment.
“Where was he? Who had brought him to this place?”
These and many other questions he asked himself, but after five minutes
had been consumed in vain conjecture, he was as far from the solution of
the mystery as at the moment when he first awoke to consciousness. He
remembered the circumstance of the falling limb in the forest, and after
that, all was blank. He did not know when he came, or who had brought
him to this place. He was familiar with the country for miles around, he
thought, and yet he did not know that there was such a cavern in the
vicinity of his cabin.
Of one thing, however, he was assured.
The people who occupied the place must be friendly, else why had they
brought him here and cared for him so tenderly?
Soon he heard a voice in the other part of the cave—a coarse, heavy
voice, evidently that of a man. It said:
“Give us the whis’, ’Lon. I guess he’s comin’ round all correct. A good
pull at this’ll fetch his idees back, I reckon.”
A corner of the curtain was raised, and a man appeared, carrying a small
bottle of liquor—so Darke inferred from the words he had just heard.
“Well, stranger, how do you feel?” said he, approaching the hunter. “I
reckon you got a right smart of a swat along side yer poll with that ar’
twig out yender. I shouldn’t wonder if it’d ’a’ splintered when it
struck _terry-firmy_ if you hadn’t ’a’ happened along jest in the nick
o’ time to break its fall. I was a witness of the lamentationable
catastofy, and see the stick when it broke off; but I obsarved that
’twas bound to fall, and knowin’ I couldn’t stop its wild career, I let
it fall; and then started to go to you, but I had to stop and watch that
ar’ pup o’ your’n. He’s a nation cute plant, he is, and I reckoned he
was a-goin’ to snake you home; but after awhile he give up and started
off for help. Then I went out and picked you up and brought you here and
laid you out. Here, take a little pull at the whis’. It’ll kinder
regulate yer pulse, set yer heart in stidy operation and ile up yer
thinkin’ merchine. Don’t say a word. I ain’t ready for you to talk yet,
and, besides, I don’t b’lieve as how you’re a nat’ral talker anyhow. Now
I’m a nat’ral-born talker. When I was an infant and didn’t weigh but
fourteen pounds, my uncle Peter informed my ma that he thought I’d
become a preacher or an auctioneer with the proper advantages—and my
uncle Peter was a physionologist and a powerful judge of live-stock!”
Darke took the flask, drank some of its contents, and handed it back to
the man, whom he had been regarding attentively from head to foot all
the while he had been speaking.
He was very tall—nearer seven feet than six—and his frame was massive in
proportion. He was, to judge from his face, which was partially obscured
by a thin growth of sandy beard, thirty-five years of age, though one
might easily have called him five years older or five years younger. He
had pale watery-blue eyes; a capacious mouth, from which projected the
points of a few large, scraggy teeth; very high and sharp cheek-bones;
enormous ears; long, sunken jaws, with hollow cheeks, and a high,
sloping forehead, blowing about which, and streaming down his back, were
a few long, thin locks of red hair, escaping from beneath the rim of a
battered and dirty old silk hat that had once been white, though
evidently a good while since.
This ancient tile was secured to the giant’s great head by means of a
light strap of deer-skin, which was lost to view under his chin among
his sparse, bristling whiskers.
He was dressed in a fur garment, part coat, part pantaloons, that
enveloped his entire person from his chin to his feet, which were
enormously large, and incased in a pair of cowhide boots that looked, so
extensive were they, and at the same time so old, as if they might have
seen service, in the removal of the baggage of the patriarchal Noah and
his sons and daughters from the family mansion to the ark, when they
were compelled to pull up stakes and emigrate at the time of the
universal deluge.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
This Darke asked after the “natural talker” had stopped to take breath.
“Why, stranger, or Mr. Darke, I might say—for I’ve known you by sight
this four year—you’re right here, and safe, I reckon. I’ve lived here
six years, and I’ve never seen any r’al ginewine ghosts yet. I’m Leander
Maybob, formerly of Maybob Center, down in old Massachusetts. If I was
real up in etiquette, I s’pose I’d ’a’ introduced myself afore; but I
ain’t polite. Now my uncle Peter was a master polite man. I remember
once, when he went down to Bosting to sell his wool—wool was ’way down
that season, he lost on that wool awful—and got kinder turned ’round
like. Well, he kept wanderin’ all over for a right smart of a while, but
he couldn’t nohow see his way clear back to the ‘Full Bottle Inn’—he was
a-puttin’ up there. My uncle Peter was a master polite man, and didn’t
consider it proper to speak to folks as hadn’t been introducted to him,
and so he kept right on wanderin’ about without inquirin’ the way till
late in the afternoon, when he begun to experience the gnawin’ pangs of
an empty stummick; and he made up his mind as ’twould be better to be
guilty of a breach of politeness than to starve. But he wasn’t quite
certain, and so he took out his etiquette book—he always carried one, my
uncle Peter did, Deacon Checkerfield’s, I believe—and looked to see if
there was any rules touchin’ this very peculiar case o’ his’n. Well, he
set down on a bar’l in a shed, for ’twas a-rainin’ hard by this time,
and studied his book till it got so dark he couldn’t see to read any
longer, and then he concluded to break etiquette or bu’st. Etiquette was
a master fine thing, he argu’d, the very foundation o’ society; but
’twasn’t hardly the thing for an empty stummick. So he got up and went
into a big house right across the way. Here he see a feller as looked
kinder nat’ral. ‘Pardin,’ sez he, ‘your countenance looks f’miliar.’ He
made a master bow as he spoke. ‘Will you be so kind as to tell me the
way to go to the Full Bottle Inn?’ ‘’Tain’t no way in p’tickler’, sez
the feller. ‘Beg pardon,’ sez my uncle Peter. He was a master polite
man. ‘But I want to know how fur ’tis to the Full Bottle Inn.’ ‘’Tain’t
no distance at all,’ sez the feller, ‘It’s right here.’ My uncle give in
and begged the feller’s pardon—he was a master polite man, my uncle
Peter was. He’d been settin’ right in front of the inn for hours
studyin’ his etiquette book, cause he didn’t know nobody to ask. He
didn’t tell of it for five years afterward.”
At this moment the curtain which divided the cavern was pushed back at
one side, and another person advanced toward Darke and his Titanic
companion.
He came and stood by Leander Maybob, and the hunter looked from one to
the other in astonishment.
He was scarcely four feet in hight, the top of his head barely reaching
the giant’s waist.
His apparel resembled that of his more portly companion, with the
exception of the covering for the head and feet.
The dwarf’s round little pate was surmounted by a grotesquely
broad-brimmed wool hat, and he appeared, as his small keen eyes flashed
quick, nervous glances about, not unlike the traditional “toad under a
cabbage-leaf,” while his lower extremities were adorned by a pair of
nicely-fitting deer-skin moccasins.
“He’s my little brother,” the giant said, by way of introduction. “We’re
the Maybob twins. We ain’t much alike you see. He’s a little mite of a
feller, and I’m big enough to be his daddy; he’s dumb—can’t speak a
word—and I’m a nat’ral talker. Now uncle Peter said as how he thought
’twasn’t hardly fair, makin’ me so big and so complete in every way, and
him so little and scarce; but says daddy, says he—and he was a univarsal
smart man daddy was—says he it’s all in the family, and they’ll both
together make a couple of middlin’ good-sized men—they’ll about average,
and it’s all in the family. My little brother’s name’s Alonphilus. But
if we’re different in sich respects, we’re alike as fur as the one great
principle of our lives goes. Ain’t we, ’Lon?”
There was a scintillant glow in the dwarf’s little black eyes as he
nodded assent.
CHAPTER VI.
OUT IN THE STORM.
Trembling herself with a fear all the more terrible because of its
vagueness and uncertainty, and with her beautiful face pale as death,
Vinnie stood and watched the trembling of the heavy cabin door, as the
scratching noise was repeated for a third time.
The sound was louder, more imperative than before.
The chief seemed suddenly to arouse from the state of frightened
inactivity into which he had fallen, and rising on his feet, walked, or
rather staggered, toward the shaking door.
He seemed to have lost all his strength, for he reeled across the floor
like a drunken man.
For two or three minutes the sound was not repeated, and Vinnie and the
savage stood waiting with bated breath.
They had not long to wait.
Again came that harsh, grating sound, as though some one was digging the
point of a knife, or some other hard, sharp instrument into the door.
Almost simultaneously with this noise, came a long, low whine, evidently
that of a brute.
Vinnie started.
The look of wild fear left her face, and she advanced toward the door,
while the low wail was repeated in a louder key and more prolonged than
before.
She gave utterance to a glad exclamation.
“It is _Death_!”
It was evident in a moment that Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, also, had discovered
the cause of the strange sounds.
He seemed to gain new strength.
“It is the dog!” he said harshly, laying hold of the girl’s hand, just
as she was about to open the door to admit Death.
Vinnie nodded.
“He is large and strong,” continued the chief, “and his teeth are like
the points of knives!”
She knew her power over his untutored, superstitious mind, and she was
no longer afraid.
She nodded again and said:
“Yes, he is very strong, and his teeth are like needles. If he sets them
into an Indian’s flesh he will die. Shall I let him in to you? His name
is Death!”
The savage gripped her hand tighter.
“No,” he said, with evident alarm. “Sun-Hair must not let the dog in.”
Giving her a quick, sudden pull, he drew her across the room and through
the other apartment to a rear door.
Her face changed color and she tried to release herself from his hold,
but without avail.
Here he unhanded her, and went back and closed the door between the two
rooms. Barring it securely he returned, and laying his heavy hand on her
shoulder, he bent over till his dark face almost touched hers, and
fairly hissed through his set teeth:
“Sun-Hair has a mighty power from the great Manitou. She has escaped
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah this time, with her devil-box; but let her beware! If
the dog could get at the chief he would kill him, but Ku-nan-gu-no-nah
is safe. Before Sun-Hair can open both doors he will be away in the
forest. Let the pale-face medicine-woman beware!”
Vinnie did not try to detain him. She could not. All the time he had
been speaking, his hard, bony fingers were closed on her shoulder like
an iron vise.
He let go his hold suddenly, and an instant later was running across the
little open space at the rear of the cabin.
Vinnie saw him disappear among the trees, and then turned and opened the
door that led into the other apartment.
In a moment she had undone the fastenings of the other one, and the
blood-hound sprung into the cabin.
He stopped before Vinnie, and looking up into her face, gave utterance
to a long, low whine.
She patted his head and caressed him, but he would not be satisfied.
Still whining piteously he turned, and with his red eyes fixed on her
face walked toward the door.
She did not heed this mute appeal.
He turned again and going up to her, took hold of her dress with his
teeth and pulled it quietly.
“Why, Death, old fellow!” she said, caressing the sagacious brute again.
“What is the matter? Where is your master?”
When she mentioned her father the dog pulled harder at her dress, almost
pulling her along toward the door.
A wild fear seemed suddenly to force its way to her heart. There was
only one way in which she could account for the strange demeanor of the
dog.
Surely something must have happened to her father!
She was sure of this when she remembered a story that he had told her
once, about the blood-hound’s saving her life when she was a child of
five or six.
The chill wind was blowing harder than when the hunter set out from the
cabin, and the black, angry clouds, hanging low in the sky, threatened
momentarily to open and shower down the cold, half-frozen November rain
over the earth.
Suddenly, while Vinnie looked out, there came a fierce gust of wind
tearing through the great oaks and rattling their heavy leafless
branches against the walls of the cabin.
Twigs and leaves were flying in wild confusion through the air, and it
was growing darker every moment.
“A wild and fearful storm is approaching,” said the girl, shudderingly;
“but I must not hesitate. My father is in danger—may be he is—”
She paused a breath, as if fearful to say the word; and then went on:
“Maybe he is dead!”
The dog was tugging at her dress again.
“Yes,” she said, in reply to his dumb, eager look. “Yes, I am going.
Come!”
And shutting the door after her, she followed her brute guide out into
the storm, which had now begun to fall, and away through the forest till
they arrived at the place where the hunter had met with the accident
from the falling limb a short time before.
Here the dog stopped, and after sniffing about for a moment, readily
found the trail which the giant hunter had made as he carried Darke away
to the cavern, where we left him at the close of our last chapter.
Then he turned, and pulling again at Vinnie’s dress, trotted slowly away
on the track he had just discovered.
The storm had been steadily increasing, and it had been growing darker
all the time, till the forest was indescribably somber and gloomy.
The brave girl did not shrink; but drawing a blanket she had thrown
around her on leaving the cabin closer about her slender form, to shield
her in a measure from the sleet that dashed against her person, cutting
almost like a knife, she pushed on after the blood-hound, increasing her
speed to keep up with him.
By and by Death stopped suddenly at the foot of a steep, rocky
acclivity.
He seemed, all at once, to have lost the trail.
Vinnie drew her blanket closer about her face and shoulders, and
crouching close up against the trunk of a large tree, watched him
eagerly.
He ran back and forth several times along the base of the acclivity,
searching for the lost trail; then paused at last, with a quick, glad
yelp, before a large rock that, almost hidden by the thick overhanging
shrubbery along the hillside, seemed to be firmly imbedded in the earth.
Then for several minutes he made no sign.
Had he lost the trail again?
He whined, and began to scratch away at the earth about the bottom of
the bowlder.
Vinnie, at a loss to account for his strange behavior, drew the blanket
up over her head, and creeping closer up under the friendly shelter of
the great tree-trunk, looked on in wonder.
It did not occur to her that the flat stone might conceal the entrance
to the cavern beyond—for she was indeed at the opening that led into the
place where Leander Maybob, the giant hunter, had carried her father but
a little while before.
Soon the blood-hound stopped digging, and sat down, with another long,
low whine, keeping his red eyes fixed immovably on the dark surface of
the rock before him.
“What can it mean?” Vinnie asked herself. “He does not search for the
trail any longer. Why does he stop here? What is there about that rock?
I wonder if it is immovable. Perhaps it covers the trail some way. I am
going to attempt to move it. It looks very ponderous. It must be very
heavy.”
She examined the bowlder closely, but could see nothing to indicate that
it had ever been stirred from the place where it seemed so firmly
imbedded into the earth.
She laid hold of a corner that appeared to project more than any other
portion of the rock, and pulled with all her strength.
The stone remained immovable. Of what avail were her weak little hands?
“I can not stir it,” she said. “It is as firmly fixed as masonry. I am
not strong enough.”
When the dog saw that she was trying to remove the bowlder, he
recommenced scratching at the dirt at its base, giving utterance ever
and anon to quick, glad yelps.
She tried once more; but her second efforts were as unavailing as her
first.
“It is no use,” she said, half to herself and half to the blood-hound.
“I can not stir it. But what does it mean? In what manner does it cover
the trail? It does, somehow; or Death would surely pick it up and follow
on. What a fearful storm! I never saw one like it before. How the sleet
cuts my face and hands!”
And she shrunk back into her old shelter.
The dog kept his place before the bowlder, from which he never removed
his eyes till his quick ear caught a strange sound, which even Vinnie
heard plainly above the roar of the storm.
Following the direction of the brute’s gaze, the girl saw a sudden and
unexpected sight.
Some one was approaching on a white horse.
She cowered down out of sight behind the tree-trunk and watched. The
storm half blinded her; but she could see that it was a man, and that
something, wrapped in a thick, black cloth, hung limp and helpless
across the horse before him. It was like a human being. Was it alive or
dead?
CHAPTER VII.
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!
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GIANT’S STORY.
Darke noted the angry flash in the dwarf’s little black eyes, as he
nodded an eager assent to his brother’s strange question, and wondered
not a little what the “one great purpose” of this queerly assorted
pair’s lives was; but he forbore to question the giant, not doubting
that, if it was not some secret that they did not wish to disclose, he
would explain himself in good time. And this belief was not far from
correct, as the giant hunter’s next words attested. He sat down on a
stool near at hand; and as Alonphilus came and stood at his side, he
said:
“Yes; wer’e livin’ for some purpose. We have given our lives up to
revenge! Wer’e a-gittin’ revenge every day, hain’t we, ’Lon?”
The dwarf’s round little pate was bent forward again until Darke just
caught the glitter of the dusky eye under the broad rim of his slouch
hat; and this he interpreted to be a token of assent to the giant’s
question. As his face was raised to view again, he thought he saw the
dwarf’s mute lips move, as if in an attempt to speak, and he imagined
that volumes of vindictive, vengeful words were struggling for
utterance. But the dumb tongue was incapable of expressing even a tithe
of the dark passion that was written on every lineament of the pigmy’s
face.
“And we’ve anuff to be revenged for, God knows!” Leander Maybob went on.
“We can’t never wipe out of our memories our old father and mother that
the red devils murdered in cool blood; we can’t never forgit the awful
sight our eyes rested onto, when we came home from a hunt one morning;
we can’t never wipe this out of our minds. But, the just God helpin’ us,
we’ll wipe every one of their murderers off o’ the earth before we die!
The devil that led them shall die a more horrible death than even his
own hellish mind has planned for his poor helpless victims! We’ve done a
deal t’ward fulfillin’ our vow in the past six years; eh, ’Lon? We’ve
made many a savage bite the dust in that time!”
The dwarf’s hand darted into the bosom of his hairy vestment; it came
out again in an instant, and he held up to Darke’s view a deer-skin
string about four feet in length, which was knotted almost from one end
to the other.
He touched each knot in succession with the forefinger of his right
hand, accompanying every motion with a nod of the head.
“There’s just a hundred an’ forty-eight knots,” said the big hunter;
“and every one on ’em is a red-skin’s eppytoph!”
That slender strip of deer-skin, simple and harmless as it appeared,
told a ghastly story of conflict and of death and of half-sated
vengeance!
“We’ll git our hands on him yet,” the big hunter went on. “We’ve had
chances to kill him of’en enough; but jest a common death ain’t enough
fer him. He desarves more; an’ I want to give him his jest desarts. He
must die an awful death! Our vengeance’ll overhaul him yet, ’Lon. Then
you may tie a double knot! We’ll give him two varses to his eppytoph;
eh, ’Lon?”
The dwarf nodded, touched the hilt of his hunting-knife significantly,
and made motions as if to tie a knot in the string which he still held
in his hand.
“Of whom do you speak?” queried Darke, as he supported himself on his
elbow.
“The red fiend that led the attack on our cabin! The devil that shot my
mother and carried my old father’s white scalp away in his belt! Hain’t
we got reason plenty fer vengeance? Do ye wonder that we hunt, and kill
Indians as you would kill serpints? Do ye think it’s strange that we
don’t want to let that red imp die a common way?”
The big hunter had arisen while he spoke, drawing his Titanic form up to
its full hight. The expression on his face was terrible to look upon. As
he finished, he brought his ponderous clenched fist down, striking it in
the horny palm of his other hand.
Drake half shuddered.
“No—_no_!” he cried. “No death—no torture on earth is horrible enough to
be meet punishment for the atrocities of such a fiend incarnate! Is he
an Indian chief?”
The giant nodded. His ungovernable rage seemed to have entirely spent
itself, and he did not speak; but stood with folded arms and downcast
eyes, his massive frame as motionless as though carved out of the solid
rock around them.
Alonphilus seemed to partake keenly of this feeling of undying,
inveterate hatred of the Indians. His face wore a hard, implacable look,
and he kept drawing the record of their vengeance slowly through his
fingers from one hand to the other, as if he longed to tie the short end
of it that was yet unmarked by the little death register into one great
hard knot, that could never be entangled, in commemoration of the
passage from this life to the next of the murderer of his parents and
the triumphant consummation of their terrible work of vengeance.
The spell that was on the big hunter was only momentary, and it was but
a minute or two before he was himself again; and he signified his
willingness to resume the conversation by saying, as he reseated himself
on the stool at the side of the couch of skins on which Darke reclined:
“Well, I heerd Elder Fugwoller say onc’t—and he was college l’arnt—‘It’s
a long tow-path, or cow-path, or suthin’, as hasn’t got no turns into
’em;’ and I believe it’s true as gospil.”
The dwarf turned and walked across the cavern, and, pushing aside the
dividing curtain, disappeared within the inner apartment, replacing the
death record in his bosom as he did so.
“The day of retribution is sure to come at last. It is not often that
the guilty escape punishment,” said Darke. “It is sure to overtake them
sooner or later. God’s justice is certain!”
“I’m a-thinkin’,” returned Leander Maybob, “as how Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s
tow path or cow-path’ll take a mighty unexpected turn some day!”
“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah!”
The big hunter seemed surprised at Darke’s sudden exclamation.
“Yes,” he said, “that’s the devil’s name. Do you know him? Have _you_
got an account ag’in’ him?”
“Yes,” cried Darke, sitting bolt upright on the couch, while a hard,
stern look settled on his face. “Yes; I believe I have. And I am going
to present it for settlement the very first time I see him!”
“What do you mean?” the other asked, evincing no small degree of
interest in the words and actions of Darke. “Has he ever—”
“I’ll tell you,” interrupted Darke. “Then you’ll understand how it is.
We—I mean Vinnie, my motherless daughter, and myself—live alone in our
little cabin. There is no one to keep us company and no one that I can
leave with her when, as I am often compelled to do, I go in search of
game out into the woods. Sometimes I am absent a whole day together; but
I never stay away over night. Some time last summer, while Vinnie was
wandering through the edge of wood that skirts our little clearing,
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah saw her and conceived the idea of making her his wife.
Always choosing times when I was away, he has several times come to my
cabin; trying to persuade Vinnie to go with him to his wigwam and become
his squaw. He has never offered her violence, but the last time, failing
to induce her to do as he wished, he threatened to abduct her and bear
her away to the Indian village. I have left her a pistol to be used as a
protector, and she has not been brought up on the frontier without
learning how to handle it. I am staying away to-day, I fear, longer than
I ought to. I hope I shall be able to go home soon. How long is it since
you brought me here? I begin to feel stronger, as if I could walk easily
enough now. Have I been here long, did you say?”
“I lugged ye in here som’eres about the middle of the a’ternoon,”
replied the other, “and it’s purty near night now. ’Lon’s comin’ back
with the glims now. You’ve b’en here som’ere’s about three or four
hours. D’ye b’lieve yer fit to travel now?”
“Yes,” said Darke. “I think all my strength has come back. I do not feel
weak or faint; but my head aches terribly—that’s all. I must go.”
The dwarf entered at this juncture, bearing four or five pitch-pine
torches, which he lighted and stuck into niches in the rocky walls of
the cavern.
“I s’pose ye calkilate to shoot him?” said Leander Maybob, eagerly. “I
s’pose ye’ll kill him. ’Twould only jest be in the natur’ of things fer
ye to do so; but I wish ye wouldn’t. I wish ye wouldn’t harm a hair of
his head. Ye see he can’t die only onc’t; and if you kill him he won’t
suffer only one death. If we wipe him out, he’ll hev to die a hundred
deaths in one! If ye jest load a gun in the common way and fire it off,
that’s all there is of it; but if ye puts in a good many loads and rams
’em down good till ye’ve got it chuck full cl’ar to the muzzle, and then
manage some way to git out of danger and gives the trigger a leetle
jerk, why then ye’ll bu’st the ’tarnal thing. Ye see when we tech
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah off, we calkilates to bu’st him. I wish ye’d jest let
us pay it all off together—your score and our own. What d’ye say?”
“You know a man always feels better for taking his own revenge,” said
Darke. “It’s more satisfactory.”
“Yes, I know ’tis,” replied the big hunter. “I know ’tis, and I wouldn’t
nohow let any man take our job outen our hands; but when I tell ye our
story, I b’lieve ye’ll agree as we’re the ones that ought to have the
prime chance at Ku-nan-gu-no-nah. If I’ll tell it to ye, ye’ll jest give
the subjick a few minutes thort, won’t ye?”
“I should like very much to hear your story,” said Darke; “and I’ll
consider what you have proposed.”
It is unnecessary that we should follow Leander Maybob through the
somewhat tedious length of recital, during which he made many pauses and
numerous repetitions; but we will give the reader the substance of his
sad story.
The giant hunter had, with his dwarf brother and his parents,
considerably advanced in life, come from the East seven years before,
and erected a pioneer’s cabin at a place down the river twenty or
twenty-five miles from their cavern lodge. They commenced making a
little clearing, and for several months all went well; although the
Indians made almost daily visits to their forest home, they never
molested any thing or offered any violence. The days went by and they
began to fancy themselves secure from any harm from the savages. But
they put too much faith in their treacherous natures. When Darke heard
how a band of the dusky fiends, led by Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, attacked the
old settler’s cabin one dark, stormy night in the absence of his
sons—when he heard how the stout-hearted, gray-haired old man and his
feeble wife had been driven out, after defending their cabin and their
lives gallantly for nearly two hours, by the flames which were devouring
their little log home, whose rough walls had warded off the Indians’
bullets, which had rallied harmlessly from their sides; how they had
been butchered as they came out from the roaring, crackling mass—when
the giant avenger told him with a moisture suffusing his eyes of the
return next morning of himself and Alonphilus and the heart-sickening
sight they beheld; when he heard all this, he could not wonder that
these strange brothers had taken a solemn and fearful vow to avenge
their parents’ death. He knew that their claim on the life of the chief
was greater than his; so he said, as he arose from the couch—for he was
much stronger now:
“I will promise you this. Unless I find it absolutely necessary to
protect myself or mine, I will try to forego my revenge on
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and leave him to your disposal. Is this satisfactory? I
believe you have a better right to kill him than I.”
“Thank ye!” said the big hunter, grasping Darke’s hand and squeezing it
almost painfully in his bony fingers. “Thank ye, Mr. Darke. It seems as
how I can’t thank ye enough!”
“Never mind the thanks,” said Darke. “I am your debtor. You took me in
when—”
“There! that’ll do,” interrupted Leander. “Come.”
As he ceased speaking, he turned and led the way into the inner
apartment of the cavern.
Darke felt quite well now, with the exception of an acute pain in his
head, and he followed his strange entertainer with no difficulty
whatever.
The place where he now found himself resembled the outer cavern a good
deal, only it was much smaller and contained a sort of rude fireplace,
on the hearth of which a bright fire was blazing merrily, sending
showers of sparks up a narrow fissure that served as an outlet for the
smoke; in short, it was a natural chimney, and could not have answered
its purpose better had it been built up of stone and mortar in the usual
way. Another small apartment was curtained off from this in the same
manner that the two larger apartments of the cavern were separated from
each other, only the curtain of pelts was closely drawn, as if special
pains had been taken to shut out the interior from the view of any one
in the other part of the cave.
The big hunter motioned Darke to a seat on the stool near the fire, and
then, followed by the dwarf, passed into this smaller room, if such it
might be called, carefully closing the curtain behind him. Soon Darke
heard him say something in a subdued tone that he could not understand.
A moment later he caught a few words that caused him to wonder greatly.
Evidently there was a mystery connected with the little apartment. He
heard the rough voice of the big hunter say:
“Does he show any signs of life yet? Can’t be he’s dead!”
The next moment they returned, but the giant offered no explanation of
the mystery, whatever it was, and Darke thought best to act as though he
had not overheard the strange words quoted above. A large oaken chest
stood nearly in the center of the place; and on its lid Alonphilus had
arranged a savory supper of broiled venison.
The brothers each drew a stool up by the side of this strange table, and
Leander invited Darke cordially to do the same.
After he had partaken of the food so hospitably proffered by his
new-found friends, he announced his intention to depart at once for
home. The big hunter told him that it was already growing dark outside,
and he knew that he must have been away from Vinnie at least five hours,
now; and he feared that she would grow uneasy if he did not return soon.
He thanked the twin avengers for their kindness and was about to go,
when he saw Alonphilus raise one end of the chest as if to carry it to
some other part of the cavern. He stood close at hand, and he laid hold
of the other handle to assist the dwarf in its removal.
They had gone but a few paces, however, when Alonphilus tripped and
fell, dropping his part of the burden to the ground; and the sudden jar
caused the other handle to slip from Darke’s grasp. The chest
overturned, the cover flying back as it did so, and its contents rolled
out at the woodman’s feet with a weird, ghastly rattle as it struck the
rocky floor. Darke, strong, brave man though he was, started back with a
quick, sharp cry of alarm.
White and terrible at his feet, lay _a grinning, horrible skeleton of
gigantic proportions_!
“Our secret! Our secret!” cried the big hunter, hoarsely. “You hev
diskivered our secret!”
CHAPTER IX.
LOST IN THE FOREST.
Still crouching down by the great tree-trunk at the entrance of the
cavern lodge of the Maybob twins, in whose care her father, of whom the
reader recollects she came out in search, was at that very moment,
though she knew it not, and had no knowledge of the cave itself, Vinnie
watched, as best she might, through the blinding storm, the approach of
the rider of the white horse and his mysterious burden. Death, desisting
for a moment from his persistent pawing of the earth at the base of the
rock that had defied the girl’s weak attempts at removal a few minutes
before, came, and standing close beside her, poked his sharp nose out
through the bushes that grew thick around the foot of the tree, and
watched with his keen eyes the horseman, who was coming nearer every
moment.
She could not see the man’s face very distinctly, for he wore a wide,
slouch hat that, when he bent far forward on his horse, to prevent the
sleet from beating into his eyes and mouth, almost entirely concealed it
from view.
But the mysterious burden that he carried before him was plainly
visible, and seemed, perhaps because of its very mystery, to have a sort
of weird fascination for her.
She could not see the object, itself; it was so closely rolled in and so
carefully protected from the driving storm by the heavy black wrap that
entirely enveloped it from head to foot—for she had firmly determined
that it was a human form. Only one question remained unsolved in her
mind now.
“Was it alive or dead?”
While she yet pondered on this mystery, and with her eyes on the
horseman, every thing—the white horse—its rider—the man or woman, or
corpse, that he had carried before him—whatever it was that was hidden
from sight so effectually within the folds of that _pall_—she could not
believe it was any thing else—while yet she saw him coming toward the
place of her concealment, all vanished from her sight as suddenly and as
surely as though the earth had opened and swallowed them up.
She uttered a little cry of consternation. Then she rubbed her eyes and
looked again.
But there was nothing there, where the man and the horse and that other
_thing_ had been, only the falling storm, still raging with all its
fury.
What could it mean?
She asked herself this question shudderingly, while, in her fear, she
clung around the neck of her great brute companion, glad in the terror
that possessed her of the company which he, dumb animal though he was,
could be to her.
The blood-hound had never, for an instant, removed his gaze from the
place where the mysterious horseman, with his black burden, had so
unaccountably disappeared a few moments before; and while Vinnie’s arms
were yet around his neck he tore himself from her embrace and darted out
of sight among the shrubbery that grew dense and heavy about the spot.
Vinnie called to him repeatedly, but he did not come back. She waited,
then called again and again with a like result. The dog did not come;
nor could she hear him beating about the undergrowth.
Had he deserted her?
She would not believe it; and she cried again, her voice almost losing
itself in the roar of the storm:
“Death! Death! Death, come back! Here, Death—good old fellow! Come
back!”
Again she waited and listened.
The wind and storm were all the sounds she heard.
Then it seemed to come to her all at once that she was alone. Even her
brute protector had deserted her.
All alone in the tempest that was raging through the forest like a
thousand furies!
“He has gone!” she quavered, hugging the tree-trunk closer, as a gust of
wind wilder than any before swept through the forest, uprooting a large
sycamore not far away, and blowing the covering off from her head;
letting the sleet dash in its sharp, cutting way into her face. “He is
gone,” she repeated with slow iteration, “and I am all alone!”
She thought of returning to the cabin; but she dared not face the storm.
It was almost certain death to attempt to make her way home with the
storm at its hight and while trees were falling almost constantly, and
branches flying hither and thither all the time, crashing through the
tree-tops and whirling in mid-air as though they had been but feathers
instead of massive pieces of wood.
She dared not venture out of her shelter. So she shrunk back as far as
possible and waited. Perhaps the storm would abate somewhat after a
while. She hoped it would; and this was her one bit of comfort.
In an hour’s time the tempest seemed to have spent its fury. The wild
roar of the wind had dwindled to a low, mournful moaning, and the sleet
had ceased to fall; but the rain fell in a slow, monotonous drizzle that
seemed likely to continue through the night.
The afternoon was now very far advanced, but it lacked more than an hour
of nightfall.
Vinnie arose to her feet now, and walked slowly back, as nearly as she
could find her way, over the trail she had come. She followed it without
much difficulty for a short distance, but by and by when she lost sight
of the indistinct pathway that led away from the cavern, she was obliged
to be guided solely by her judgment of what direction she ought to take
to reach her father’s cabin.
For nearly an hour she kept on, picking her way through the thick
undergrowth, and climbing over fallen trees and heaps of the _debris_ of
the storm which was scattered through the length and breadth of the
forest. It was beginning to grow dark, and the cold November rain kept
falling slowly and steadily. The sky was overcast with black clouds.
Vinnie felt that she made but slow progress, hasten as she might. The
night, when it came, would be very dark, and she dreaded lest it might
overtake her before she reached home.
With wildly beating heart she pressed on; and soon the landmarks began
to grow familiar to her. She was weary and almost heartsick; but she
began to feel more hopeful. Things along her way looked more and more as
though she had seen them before every minute. Was she nearing the cabin?
She thought so.
She had kept a sharp look-out for the clearing that her father had made
around their forest-home, but she could see nothing to remind her of it.
She kept on bravely, though, never doubting one minute that she would
catch a glimpse of the cabin through the trees the next.
The trees on either hand appeared familiar. She was feeling really
hopeful now.
“I’ll be there in a few moments, I’m sure,” she said to herself as
cheerily as she could. “That old crooked sycamore there looks like an
old acquaintance! The clearing must be just ahead!”
She pressed onward quite hopefully now; and, five minutes later, she
found herself—just where she had started from an hour before. There was
the rock that she had tried in vain to move, and the great tree behind
whose sturdy trunk she had found a partial shelter from the storm!
She staggered back, clutching at a bush for support.
“My God!” she moaned, “I am lost!”
She sunk down on the wet earth almost despairfully.
Then her old brave spirit reasserted itself.
“What a poor miserable little coward I am!” she exclaimed, almost angry
with herself. “What can I do that is more likely to get me out of my
trouble than to try again?”
It was growing dark very fast now and the cold rain was falling as
slowly and monotonously as ever; but she would not allow herself to
think of either the coming night or the drizzling rain—and she set out
for home a second time quite bravely.
It was no desirable task that she had before her, and she did not look
upon her weary walk as a mere pleasure trip, by any means. Still that
bold, hopeful spirit that had borne her up through her adventures with
the chief that afternoon was with her now; and she was far from being
despondent.
“If I try, and keep trying,” she mused, as she hurried on, “I may reach
home in safety by-and-by; and if I am really lost and must stay in the
forest, I suppose there is very little choice in sleeping-places. So,
upon the whole, I think I had better keep traveling about as long as I
can. I will try and not get faint-hearted again, anyway.”
In twenty minutes it was dark as Erebus!
Still the girl pressed bravely forward through the night. She could no
longer see with any certainty. Keeping any specific course was out of
the question; and it was with great difficulty that she kept her feet,
at times, among the fallen trees and tangled undergrowth. But she tried
to keep a bold heart.
Glancing ahead, through the blackness, to a dense thicket just in
advance, she saw something that made her pause in terror. It was a pair
of eyes!
Vinnie stood quite still, too much frightened to stir or cry out. That
pair of fixed, fiery eyes had a sort of weird fascination for her.
All at once, while she yet looked at them, she felt the blood leaving
her heart, and an awful terror took possession of her whole being.
The eyes were slowly and unmistakably advancing toward her!
She tottered back a step or two with a low cry. Just then there was a
loud report near at hand. An unearthly screech, half-human, rung out on
the night-air. The eyes seemed to shoot up a few feet and then they
disappeared.
A man came dashing through the undergrowth, and in a moment he stood
beside her.
“Vinnie!”
“Oh, father!”
“Don’t be afraid, little one,” Darke said, reassuringly. “It was a
panther; but it is dead now. It is a fearful night. Let us hurry home.
When we get there, you must tell me how you came here.”
He took her hand in his and they hastened on through the night.
CHAPTER X.
A BAFFLED VENGEANCE.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah had not intended to push Bear-Killer over the bluff. He
knew that treachery was one of his strongest characteristics, and
fearful lest in some manner he should lose his revenge, or rather his
chance for revenge, on his white rival, he watched him narrowly as he
made ready to hurl his tomahawk in the trial of skill he had proposed to
determine which of the two should put the unconscious young hunter to
death; and he detected almost instantly the intention of Bear-Killer to
act in accordance with this his most prominent trait of character.
He saw that the treacherous brave was poising his tomahawk to throw, not
at the mark on the tree-trunk, but at the head of their victim!
All the quick, wild passion of his fierce nature was aroused in an
instant.
He was not one to brook treachery.
With a cry of rage, he struck Bear-Killer a sudden powerful blow with
his fist.
The doomed savage lost his balance and toppled over the precipice.
While yet his wild death yell rung out on the storm, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah
threw himself flat on the ground, and craning his neck out over the
bank, looked down into the foaming water below.
At first he saw nothing but the jagged rocks and the tossing flood.
Then, a little down-stream, the dusky face of his victim was visible for
an instant amid the eddying waters, then it sunk from sight forever.
“He will be carried over the waterfall,” said the chief. “He will lodge
on the rocks below. I will send the pale-face after him, and he can take
his revenge down there. He will not dispute my right to the first
chance. I will take my revenge now. He can have his afterward—all he can
get!”
There was no place in the red fiend’s heart, for remorse for any evil
deed. He had looked upon the whole affair as a fortunate accident that
had rid him of one who stood in his way—nothing more!
He arose from the ground and turned his gaze upon his hated and
senseless rival.
It would be impossible to depict the fierce rage and triumph that
flashed from the chief’s eyes, as he regarded his victim.
Clancy was still swaying slowly backward and forward over the whirling,
roaring waters far below, that seemed to be filled with hoarse,
clamorous voices, crying aloud for his life.
The motion of his body was more gentle now that the wind had died down.
The lasso no longer jerked and cracked, threatening to break and let him
down into the jaws of death, gaping wide below.
He hung pulseless and heavy, like a man that was dead—there was neither
a tremor nor a pulsation to tell if he lived or not.
A hand placed on his heart would have felt the faintest kind of a
flutter; that was all!
He was alive, but for how long?
It was impossible for Ku-nan-gu-no-nah to touch him from the bank.
He was uncertain whether he was yet alive.
But if he clove his head with his tomahawk, he would be sure that he was
dead.
Was he going to wreak vengeance for a fancied wrong, on his vital,
breathing rival, or on his soulless body?
He did not know. He knew that the soul would leave the body before his
vengeance was accomplished! If the form swaying before him was alive now
he would leave it dead.
Was he going to tomahawk a man or a corpse?
He did not know, and he did not care!
With an expression of fiendish exultation on his dark, evil face, he
took a position not more than twenty feet distant from Vere, and drew
his tomahawk.
Long practice had made him an adept in the use of his favorite weapon,
and he poised it instantly, without any apparent care. He was sure of
his aim at such close range, and in a second the tomahawk went whirling
out of his hand.
But it missed its human mark by six inches, and fell with a dull splash
into the water.
The wind and the swinging motion of the young hunter had baffled him!
He uttered a deep curse, and drew a small pistol from his belt.
To cock it and bring the sights to a level with his eye was but the work
of a moment. He pulled the trigger. There was a click as the hammer came
down—that was all.
It was not loaded!
Clancy Vere remained unharmed.
The hand of Providence was in it!
With a low cry of baffled rage, he set about loading the pistol. He had
accomplished it in a minute. Would any thing baffle him now?
He cocked it, put on a cap, and took careful aim at Clancy’s head.
There was a flash and a sharp report.
He ran to the edge of the bank and examined his intended victim’s face
critically; and there was nothing to indicate that the shot had been
effective. Surely it had not touched his face, and there was nothing
that looked like a bullet-hole in any part of the young hunter’s
deer-skin clothing.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah was almost frantic with impotent rage.
In his ungovernable passion, before, at being twice baffled, he had
neglected to put a ball in the pistol!
This explained why he had, as he thought, although he had taken accurate
aim, missed his mark.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah was a great warrior in his tribe. When he went on the
war-path he always returned laden with scalps and other ghastly trophies
of rapine and murder. Besides this he was looked upon as the best shot
among all the braves who acknowledged his authority as chief and leader.
Now he seemed to have lost his skill, and his rage and chagrin were
unbounded.
With a snarl like that of a caged tiger, he threw the pistol over the
bluff.
“Maybe it will go down to Bear-Killer,” he said. “It’s good enough for
him! He won’t do much fine shooting now, I guess! Maybe he will have his
revenge on the pale-face with it. I’m going to cut the lasso and send
him down, too, now. I think Sun-Hair, the squaw magician, has saved him
to-day with her devil-box, some way. I’ll cut the lasso, and see if she
can keep him from falling into the water! A tomahawk won’t kill him, and
a pistol is just as powerless to do him harm!” As he ceased speaking, he
drew his hunting-knife and ran his finger along its edge.
The result of the examination was apparently satisfactory—the blade was
sharp.
“I don’t believe she can hold him up in the air after the lasso is cut,”
he muttered.
Replacing the hunting-knife in his belt, he advanced to the root of the
tree, and began climbing up its trunk.
In two or three minutes he had gained the limb to which the end of the
lasso was secured.
Crawling slowly along it—for it was not large, and the waters pitching
and tossing underneath made his head swim just a trifle—he worked his
way out to the place where the lasso was tied. How the water roared and
rung in his ears!
He swung himself astride of the limb, clutching it with his left hand to
make his position more secure, while with his right he disengaged his
knife and dropped its keen edge on the lasso where it was passed several
times around the projecting branch.
Just then a sudden gust of wind swept past, causing the tree to sway a
little.
Quick as thought he placed the end of the horn handle of his knife
between his teeth and with both hands clung to the branch on which he
sat. It swung from side to side two or three times, and the chief reeled
for a moment as if he had lost his balance, he gripped the branch with
the energy of desperation, his sharp nails sinking into the rough bark,
and his swarthy face turned to an ashen hue.
In a minute or two the branch became motionless and he was once more
securely seated, with one hand clinging to the limb and one foot twisted
in the lasso in such a manner that he could disengage it at the instant
of cutting the knot.
His situation was a perilous one, but his mind was so intent on the
hellish work he was braving so much to accomplish that he heeded it not.
The least motion of the tree—a sudden gust of wind—a false movement on
his part—the merest trifle would bring upon him the death he had planned
for the man swinging below, who, until the lasso should be severed, was
more secure than he. Again he clutched the keen-edged hunting-knife, and
was about to draw it across the coils of the lariat.
A strange sound arrested his attention.
It was the voice of a man.
Steadying himself in his seat, he turned his head.
He beheld a sight so startling that he almost loosened his grip on the
limb. The knife slipped from his grasp and he held on with both hands.
A white man stood on the bank not ten yards distant, with a rifle
leveled at his head.
He was a very tall and very massive man, of very grotesque appearance;
and when the reader is told that it was Leander Maybob, the giant
hunter, and no one else, a personal description is unnecessary. The
muzzle of his rifle pointed steadily at the Indian’s head, and he said
in a rough tone of command that the chief was afraid to disobey, and, at
the same time fearful to obey:
“Come down!”
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah realized that the time occupied in the passage of a
bullet from the big hunter’s unerring rifle to his brain would be very
short.
He attempted to hitch backward along the limb and came near losing his
hold and shooting down into the roaring water below.
He looked at the giant in a half despairful way, which he only noticed
by saying:
“Come down, or I’ll shoot!”
Again he essayed to move himself backward along the limb. It was a
perilous undertaking, but death stared him grimly in the face, let him
look whichever way he would.
Once more. This time he swayed so far to one side that it was with the
greatest difficulty that he regained his equipoise on top of the branch.
Now he turned his gaze for an instant again to the man on the bank who
held his rifle in his hands—the man whose father and mother he had
murdered, though he knew it not.
If he had known the terrible oath of vengeance that the giant hunter had
registered against him, he would have chosen to strangle in the stream
underneath rather than to fall into his hands.
He paused a moment, shuddering as he half lost his hold on the limb.
Again that stern command rung in his ears:
“Come down!”
His efforts at moving along the branch toward the body of the tree were
attended with better success, now that the limb began to grow larger and
his seat more secure. Still his progress was very slow. He could have
moved forward easily enough, but he dared not turn around.
When he paused to take breath a moment, he heard the big hunter say in
his implacable voice:
“Come! D’ye want ter be shot?”
He exerted himself to the utmost, and five minutes later slid down the
trunk of the tree and stood doggedly before his captor.
“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is a great chief, ain’t he?” the giant said,
tauntingly. “He climbs trees and can’t get down ag’in without help.
Ain’t ye glad I happened along ter help ye down? He is a mighty warrior!
He goes with twenty or thirty of his greasy braves in the night to kill
and scalp a white-haired old man and a decrepit old woman! Some time I’m
goin’ ter wipe ye out, ye cowardly red divil! but not now. I’m goin’ ter
let yer live a little longer, and then when I git ready to kill ye,
you’ll suffer as many awful deaths as all of your victims put together!
Yer can go, now. I’m done with yer for the present. Come, don’t stand
there! Go!”
He drew his rifle to his face and kept it aimed at the Indian’s head
till he had gone out of sight.
CHAPTER XI.
A WELCOME VISITOR.
Hand in hand Vinnie and her father hurried on through the storm and
darkness. The way was intricate and difficult to travel; but a good
half-hour’s walk brought them to the edge of the clearing, and the weary
girl greeted the sight of the cabin, which looked like a large square
patch of blackness, through the gloom, with feelings of grateful
satisfaction.
It was the work of but a few moments for Darke, while Vinnie lighted a
candle, to rekindle the fire that had burned out during their absence.
The girl set the light on the table, and almost exhausted with the
vicissitudes of the past few hours, threw herself upon a seat. The fire
was now crackling merrily on the hearth, sending showers of sparks up
the wide chimney, and Darke, divesting himself of his hunting-shirt and
belt, stood before its genial blaze to dry the water that adhered to his
deer-skin apparel. When he took off his wide-rimmed hat and, after
shaking off the rain, tossed it into a corner, Vinnie noticed for the
first time that his head was bandaged about with a white cloth. The hat
had concealed it before, and he had not spoken of it, or asked her any
questions as they came home; his mind being filled with the mystery of
the oaken chest and its horrible contents and the strange words of the
giant hunter in regard to his discovery of their “secret.” He had made
no reply to these words. He could make none except to regret the
accident that had brought to his notice any thing that the twin avengers
did not wish him to see; and thanking them again for the kindness they
had extended to him, he came away.
Vinnie arose and coming over to where he was standing put her hand on
his arm, saying, anxiously:
“You are hurt, papa! I knew something had happened to you, or Death
would never have acted so strangely. Tell me about it, won’t you? Does
it pain you much? What can I do for you?”
“Nothing, little one. It is well enough now. The pain is very slight,
and it is well cared for already. I don’t think of any thing that would
make it any better. But where is the dog? I don’t see him here. I know
he came here after I was hurt. Did he go out with you into the forest?”
“Yes,” she replied with a smile. “Or I went with him, rather. I would
not have gone if it had not been for him.”
“Tell me about it, child,” said the woodman, eagerly. Then noticing for
the first time, the electric machine on the table which Vinnie had left
open just as she had used it that afternoon, and the magic slippers
still attached to the battery and lying on the floor near by, he went
on. “Have you been taking a private shock or enjoying an electric jig
all by yourself?”
“No,” she replied, coolly enough, as though it was the most trivial of
incidents she was speaking of, instead of a struggle for more than life
with a bloodthirsty savage. “I have not been electrizing myself; but
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah called here this afternoon while you were gone and I
guess I shocked him considerably. He seemed to be not a little affected
by the experiments of which he was the subject. I think he entertains
quite an exalted idea of my attainments as an electrician.”
“What do you mean, girl?” he asked, excitedly, placing a hand on either
shoulder and looking down into her face in a curious, half-startled way.
“I don’t understand you. Has that bloody-hearted devil been here to-day?
Explain yourself! Tell me what you mean!”
Seating herself before the fire, while her father listened eagerly,
interrupting her often with exclamations of surprise and anger, she told
him the story of the afternoon’s adventures from the time of his
departure from the cabin to the moment when he came to her deliverance
in the forest as she recoiled in terror before the approach of that pair
of lurid eyes, not omitting the mysterious disappearance of the white
horse and its rider, and the limp, helpless burden that, rolled in the
pall-like cloth, he carried before him across his saddle, and her
subsequent unaccountable desertion by the blood-hound.
Darke was convinced from her description of the place, that she had
witnessed this strange scene somewhere in the vicinity of the twin
avengers’ cavern lodge; and he recalled to mind the words that he had
overheard the big hunter speak in the small, closely-curtained apartment
of the cave.
He seemed to hear them again, so vividly were they impressed on his
mind:
“Does he show any signs of life yet? Can’t be he’s dead!”
Was there any connection between these unexplained words and the mystery
of the white horse and its rider? Were they in any way identified?
Darke thought so.
He stood leaning against the rude mantelpiece over the fireplace for
several minutes, his mind busy with conjectures. But no satisfactory
explanation came to the relief of his mystified mind; and the mystery of
the oaken chest, the secret of the Maybob twins, the strange words of
the giant hunter, and the disappearing horse and man, persisted in
remaining as deep a mystery as ever.
Vinnie, who was naturally anxious to learn the particulars of her
father’s accident and subsequent protracted absence and fortunate though
unlooked-for appearance in the forest at the very moment when he could
be instrumental in saving her life, had been regarding him attentively
for a while, waiting for him to speak and not wishing to break in on his
musings.
“Strange!” he said, at last, looking up suddenly. “What can have become
of the dog? I never knew him to behave so before! It must be that—”
He was interrupted by a slight noise at the door. He listened intently;
and a moment later the blood-hound’s well-known appeal for admittance
greeted his ear.
“It is Death!” said Vinnie, hastening to open the door. “He’s come
back!”
The next moment he sprung into the room, shaking the water in a little
shower from his dripping coat, and leaping gladly against his master,
who returned his tokens of regard with a pat on the head.
“You deserve a good whipping, you ungallant fellow,” Vinnie said, half
in earnest and half playfully, “for running off and leaving me to get
lost in the woods!” The dog paid little heed to her rebuke, and she
continued, addressing her father: “Maybe if Death could only talk, he
would have a story to tell, too. Perhaps he has discovered the mystery
of the disappearing horseman! But you have not told your story yet. I am
very anxious to hear about your accident, and every thing else that has
happened to you since you went away. You’ll tell me all about it now,
won’t you?”
And she unclosed his lips with a kiss; and he began at the beginning,
and related his adventures to her, leaving out only that portion which
bore directly on the mysterious secret of which the big hunter had
spoken. He had blundered into a partial knowledge of the private affairs
of his newly-found friends and entertainers, and his rigid ideas of
honor forbade him to make so questionable a return for their
disinterested hospitality as the disclosure of their privacy even to
Vinnie, whom he would not have hesitated to intrust with the keeping of
a life-and-death secret, had it been his own.
“It has been an eventful afternoon to us both,” said Vinnie, after she
had heard him through, “and as far as I am concerned, I do not know that
I am very much the worse for my share of its trials. If you are not
severely injured, I think we may thank our stars for having escaped as
well as we have.”
“I think so too,” replied her father. “But, my child, you look upon the
perils through which you have passed too lightly. It is no trivial
matter. I shudder when I think of what might have been the ending of
either of your adventures. I believe, of the two, the ravenous,
half-famished panther and that fiend incarnate, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, the
latter was much more to be dreaded. To the ferocity and
blood-thirstiness of the beast of prey, is added the treachery and
vindictiveness of a devil, and the reasoning powers of the human mind;
and, in his hellishness and subtlety, the chief falls but little short
of Lucifer himself! Do you realize what you have escaped, Vinnie? What
should I have done, little one, if I had lost you to-day? And, Vinnie,
there is another who, I am sure, would find life very void and destitute
of joy did he not dream that some day you might consent to share it with
him. I allude to Clancy Vere. He is a true man in every sense of the
word, and I know of no one to whose loving care I would rather resign
you than his.”
He had no need to ask her if Clancy Vere’s suit would be successful. He
could read it in her blushes.
It was growing late now, and as they were somewhat rested, Vinnie set
about the preparation of the evening meal, singing in a low voice, and
building rosy air-castles as she worked, while her father busied himself
with cleaning and reloading his trusty rifle, of which he felt justly
proud; for a truer or more unerring weapon was not to be found for many
a long mile, travel which way soever one might.
After they had partaken of the supper which Vinnie’s deft hands had
spread neatly upon the table in an incredibly short space of time, Darke
fastened the cabin doors and windows securely for the night. As he
barred the rear door he noticed that it was even darker than when they
came home, and the chill rain was falling yet in a slow, persistent
drizzle. The wind had died down.
The next morning the storm had ceased, but the sky was overcast, and
every thing as far as the eye could reach bore witness to the fury of
the tempest of the night before.
Nothing unusual transpired at the cabin during the day; and its inmates
seemed very little worse for having endured the vicissitudes of the
previous afternoon. Vinnie had got up in the morning completely
refreshed by her night’s sleep, and the pain was entirely gone from her
father’s head, leaving nothing to remind him of the injury it had
sustained but a slight bruise on his temple that would go away in a day
or two.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, as they were seated cosily by their
fire of hickory wood, recounting little incidents of their adventures
that had escaped them the night before, they were startled by a loud rap
on the cabin door. Darke hastened to open it, and was no less surprised
than gratified to meet Clancy Vere.
“Welcome, boy!” he exclaimed, giving the youth a handshake and a
greeting smile in which there was no conventionality, and which was as
heartily returned by Clancy, whose eye wandered over the old man’s
shoulder in quest of Vinnie.
The vivid blush that mantled cheek and brow, as her eyes met his, in no
way deteriorated from the prettiness of her face, Clancy thought; and
when she stepped forward half-shyly and put her trembling little hand in
his for a moment, I think he may be pardoned for allowing his heart to
look out of his eyes and wishing, as he choked back words that struggled
for utterance now harder than they had ever done before, that just a
little while his old friend Darke was in China, or Jericho, or anywhere
but there, witnessing and, in his quiet way, enjoying the young people’s
happy confusion. I am sure any of my readers who may ever have been
placed in a similar situation will exonerate him from all blame.
The young hunter looked pale and worn, and Darke noticed that when he
came forward to take the seat Vinnie had placed for him before the fire
he walked with considerable difficulty.
In reply to the woodman’s inquiries in regard to his jaded appearance
and the manifest trouble he experienced in walking, Clancy told the
story of his capture by the Indians the day before very substantially as
it has already been told the reader in the preceding pages of our story.
It is not necessary that we should weary the reader with a
recapitulation of what has already been stated; but taking up Clancy’s
narrative at the point where consciousness returned, we will follow it
to its close.
“When my senses came back,” said he, “I found myself reclining on a
couch of skins and blankets in what appeared to be a very small
apartment of a cave. I was watched over by a dwarf, who was not much
more than four feet high and as dumb as a door nail. This diminutive
watcher strengthened me by a liberal use of spirits, and as soon as I
was able to speak, summoned his giant brother, who, unlike himself, was
gifted with a ready tongue and introduced himself to me as Leander
Maybob, of Maybob Center down in old Massachusetts. He said he was a
‘natural talker,’ and proceeded to substantiate the statement by a very
wordy account of the sayings and doings of his uncle Peter and an old
Massachusetts minister named Tugwoller, interspersed with snatches of an
old love affair between Elder Tugwoller’s niece, Sally Niver, and
himself. It seems that the young couple, who were, of a verity, true
lovers, were separated for life in consequence of a ludicrous blunder on
the part of my giant host.
“After awhile I gathered from his voluble flow of words that he had
rescued me from my perilous situation and brought me to his cavern
lodge. When I had sufficiently recovered from the effects of my swing, I
partook of some strengthening food that my new-found friends prepared
for me. That was early this morning. As the day advanced, I found myself
rapidly gaining strength; and an hour or more ago I felt myself strong
enough to come on here, and, thanking my strange entertainers for their
kindness, I took my departure. As I passed out through the cavern I saw
that it was also divided into two larger apartments, one of which was
used as a sort of home by the two strangely contrasted twin brothers,
and the other was fitted up as a kind of store-room for trophies of the
chase, for it was well supplied with arms and ammunition, while the
skins and pelts of various animals were deposited in piles about the
place.”
“How much the latter part of Clancy’s story is like yours!” exclaimed
Vinnie to Darke when he had finished. “He was rescued by the same
strange person and taken to the same place and nursed back to life in
the same manner!”
“Yes,” assented Darke, “it is a singular coincidence.” Then turning
quickly toward the young hunter he said, “You must have lain insensible
in the smallest part of the place while I was there—I think you did.
They did not tell you that I had been there before you came away, did
they?”
“No,” said Clancy, who had been wondering all along at the strange words
of the woodman, “they did not tell any thing of the kind. I never knew
it till now.”
“Strange!” replied the other. “And although I am sure I was there for
quite a length of time while you lay unconscious in the little place
curtained off at the back end of the cavern, the giant did not tell me
of your presence. It can not be that there was any cause for this
concealment; and concealment does not seem to be a predominant trait of
the big hunter’s.”
“I do not understand you,” said Vere wonderingly. “Do you mean to say
that we were both at the cave at the same time? Please explain
yourself.”
And Darke told Clancy the story of his accident the day before, and how
Leander Maybob had carried him to the cavern lodge of his brother
Alonphilus and himself, cared for him till he was able to come home,
carefully guarding against any allusion to the oaken chest and its
ghastly contents, but telling him of the strange episode of the little
apartment, and repeating the mysterious words of the giant hunter, whose
meaning he had until now vainly tried to discover. They held no hidden
portent now. He knew instinctively that the words he had so vainly
wondered at, “Does he show any signs of life yet? Can’t be he is dead!”
referred to Clancy Vere.
One mystery was solved!
For several minutes both men remained silent. Darke was ruminating over
the discovery he had just made and Clancy was thinking what a lovely
picture Vinnie made as she leaned carelessly against the mantle, looking
intently into the dancing blaze of the fire, whose red glow lit up her
fair face till it seemed fairly radiant in its fresh young beauty.
Was she building air-castles again?
Clancy was!
Raising her long lashes suddenly, she met his ardent, passionate, yet
respectful gaze.
Both pair of eyes sought the floor simultaneously; and it would have
been no easy task for one to have determined which face flushed the
deepest—the maiden’s or her lover’s; for Clancy Vere knew he did love
Vinnie Darke with all his heart.
Darke had not noticed this little by-play, and he asked, suddenly, as
the pretty air-castles both had been rearing up vanished as air castles
are wont to do when they are rudely jarred:
“How long do you think you were at the cavern before your consciousness
returned?”
“I am not quite certain—two or three hours I guess.”
“And it was Leander Maybob that rescued you?”
“Yes; but he did not himself carry me to the cave. It was more than a
mile away that he found me; and although he is very strong, he could not
lug me on his back all that distance. When consciousness returned he
told me about it. Alonphilus the dwarf conveyed me to the cave.”
“How?” asked Darke.
“Oh, Leander told me all about that, too. I was brought on a horse—”
“What color was the horse?” interrupted Vinnie.
“On a white horse!” pursued the woodman.
“Yes.”
“You were rolled up from head to foot in a heavy black cloth, were you
not?” Darke went on, eagerly.
“I do not know,” said Clancy, surprised at so many questions. “But he
carried me before him across the saddle.”
Father and daughter uttered simultaneous cries of surprise.
Another mystery was solved!
CHAPTER XII.
THE FOREST ROSE.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah walked swiftly away with the deadly rifle of Leander
Maybob, the giant hunter, still leveled at his head, fairly demoniac
with wild and impotent rage. The workings of his dark face were
fearfully suggestive of the denizens of the bottomless pit.
Had he been armed he would not have left the vicinity without first
attempting the life of the man who had him in his power and who held his
very life at his disposal; but he was powerless, having no weapons
except a short, sharp-pointed knife which he always carried in addition
to his hunting-knife, and this would be useless, except in a
hand-to-hand conflict, which even in his wild passion he had not the
hardihood to dare.
In an hour’s time he came to the boundary of the wilderness and the
broad prairie stretched its level surface before him as far as he could
see. Not a tree or a bush was there visible in all this vast plain; only
the tall grasses, beat down and tangled by the fearful tempest that had
raged through the afternoon.
Turning from the nearly direct course he had been pursuing, the chief
made his way, with long, rapid strides, to the place where, in the midst
of a dense growth of bushes in the center of which there was a little
plat of smooth, grassy ground, destitute of undergrowth, he had tethered
his horse early in the afternoon. In less time than it takes to tell it,
he was mounted and galloping away over the plain.
In a little while he struck an indistinct, scarcely worn road, or rather
broad track—one of the emigrant routes of the North-west. He followed
the track for an hour or more and then making a gradual _detour_ to the
left, kept on at a swift rolling gallop which he never slackened till he
reached the Indian encampment, situated at the foot of a steep, rocky
hill that loomed up through the storm and darkness, in dull relief
against the leaden sky. Throwing himself hastily from his horse, he
stalked rapidly along and entered a wigwam at the further end of the
encampment. An aged Indian sat on a roll of skins at one side of the
place, in an attitude of deep grief or despondency. He simply glanced up
as the chief entered, then dropping his face again into his hands,
sitting silent and apparently in great agony of mind.
“How is the Forest Rose to-night?” the chief asked, glancing toward a
couch of skins and blankets on the opposite side of the lodge, on which
he could see the form of a female reclining by the dim fire-light that
illuminated the wigwam. She lay silent and motionless as though life had
fled.
“The Forest Rose is very ill,” replied the old Indian, mournfully, “and
she will die! Yon-da-do, the great medicine man, has said so. He has
made use of all his ceremonies and mystic arts, but he can not save her.
The lovely Forest Rose must die!”
As he ceased speaking he arose, and lighting a small pitch-pine torch in
the fire, went over to the side of the couch. Throwing aside the
covering from her face, he allowed the light to fall upon it for a
moment. It was a beautiful face, darkly lovely—the face of an Indian
maiden in the first flush of womanhood. She was rather light for one of
her dusky race, with heavy masses of raven-black hair falling in lovely
confusion about her statuesque face, in whose contour the hard
angularity of the Indian type was not discernible, and down upon her
perfectly-shaped neck, and softly-rounded shoulders. Her long, heavy
lashes lay upon her cheeks, which were very pale, hiding her dark
lustrous eyes, which, when lighted up with health, added not a little to
her almost bewildering beauty. But now the lovely Forest Rose lay like
one dead.
“Let my father look up and be happy!” said the chief. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah
has seen a medicine-woman to-day, that can surely bring back life to the
Forest Rose. The medicine-woman that I saw was a mighty conjuror. The
Great Spirit has given her greater power than that of Yon-da-do!”
“Who is this mighty magician?”
“She is a pale-face maiden, as beautiful as the Forest Rose,” replied
the chief.
“Would she come?” asked the old Indian, while a hopeful light flashed
out of his aged eyes, undimmed by the flight of time. “Would a white
medicine-woman come to give life back to an Indian girl!”
“She would not come willingly,” said the crafty chief, “but she must be
brought! If she is not, the Forest Rose will die!”
“Then she must be brought!” said the old Indian, decisively. “I will
call a council of braves in the morning, and a party shall be sent to
bring the white magician. The Forest Rose must be saved!”
The aged Indian was the real chief of the tribe—that is, although he was
too old to go on the war-path, leaving the active fighting to the
younger and more warlike Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, he was the real moving
spirit, always planning and ordering all important movements of the
band. The languishing Forest Rose was his daughter.
“It is well,” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, as he went away.
“The great medicine-woman will save the Forest Rose, and again she will
sing like the birds in the trees to gladden the heart of her father, the
great chief.”
Wild Buffalo, the aged sachem, called a council of braves early in the
morning, and at midday, the subtle Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, at the head of a
dozen picked warriors, was riding over the prairie in quest of
“Sun-Hair,” the beautiful magician.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FACE AT THE WINDOW.
“So the mystery of the disappearing horseman is explained very
satisfactorily at last, Vinnie,” said Darke, after their surprise had
subsided somewhat.
“Yes,” she replied, “all but the mystery of his disappearance.”
“True,” said her father; “we are still in the dark concerning that. How
could it have been accomplished?”
“I know not. It vanished before my very eyes!”
“It was doubtless owing to some peculiar turn of the path he was
following, or something of that sort,” reasoned the woodman. “A very
sudden turn among the dense growth of shrubbery that is so thick about
the place might have concealed the white horse and his rider from view
almost instantly.”
“I think very likely it was owing to that or a similar cause,” returned
Vinnie. “I suppose we shall have to accept that explanation till a
better one presents itself. It is strange that I should have allowed
myself to be alarmed at so trivial a matter. I do not think I am
superstitious. But that limp, helpless-looking black thing did appear
ghastly through the storm!”
It will be remembered that Clancy had not heard of Vinnie’s adventures
and perils of the day before; and he did not understand the conversation
that the others had kept up for the past few minutes. Noting the
questioning look on his face, the woodman said:
“There is still another story of peril and escape that you are yet to
hear. I believe I will take a short bout in the forest in search of a
turkey; and if I am successful we’ll have a supper fit for the
President. Vinnie can tell you the story while I am gone. Be sure you
don’t leave out any of the important points, and don’t forget to mention
your lover’s visit yesterday. A truthful account of the _shocking_
manner in which you treated him ought to be a caution to sparks! If I
was a young fellow, now—”
“There now! stop!” said Vinnie, with a vivid blush. “I think you’re
really too bad! And besides, you are not fit to go out to-day, after
your hurt, and—”
“That will do,” interrupted Darke, banteringly, examining the lock of
his rifle the while. “I am well enough for any thing now, and I mean to
take just this one more hunt while I’ve an opportunity. I dare not leave
you here any more alone, you know, and I’m going while I’ve got Clancy
here to keep guard over you! So good-by, and don’t think of my coming
back for two hours at the very soonest!”
She went up to him for her customary kiss.
“There,” said he, as he bent and pressed his lips to hers. “Good-by,
little one. And, Clancy, I want you to see that no one repeats this
operation during my absence. She’s all I’ve got, and I leave her in your
care. Don’t forget the story, Vinnie!” And a moment later he passed out,
closely followed by the blood-hound. Vinnie seized hold of one of the
great brute’s long ears, and bending low over him, to hide her flushed
face from Clancy’s view, said, playfully:
“There, Death, don’t run away from him as you did from me yesterday!”
Then, while the young hunter thought she was putting herself to a great
deal of useless trouble, considering that the room was very warm
already, she went and busied herself at the hearth, for what seemed to
him a very long time, stirring the fire and putting on more wood.
“What story does your father mean?” he asked, when she had at last
finished. “I thought from what you said that you saw the dwarf when he
was carrying me to the cave. It can not be that you were out in that
terrible storm?”
“But I was,” said Vinnie, with a smile, “and I half think I was the
victim of almost as serious a series of accidents as yourself. Papa told
me to tell you the story, and I suppose I must obey. Are you sure it
will be of interest to you?”
“Yes,” he replied, eagerly. “I know it will be of interest to me. Tell
it, please.”
And, half shyly at first, Vinnie complied with his request. He
interrupted her many times during her recital, with exclamations of
surprise and wonder; and when she had finished, and sat demurely before
him, with her little hands folded in her lap, and her lovely face sober
and thoughtful, he said:
“Heaven be praised for your deliverance! What if you had not escaped?”
“Why, then, I suppose—” she began, surprised at his excited manner. But
he cut short what she would have said, by saying, vehemently:
“If you had not, I would not now account my life worth as much as a
burnt charge of powder!”
Vinnie glanced up at him quickly, but her long lashes drooped as she met
his ardent look.
He arose to his feet, and standing up before her, went on in rapid,
eager tones:
“I love you, Vinnie Darke, as I can never love another woman in the
whole world! I ask for your love in return. Can you—will you give it to
me, Vinnie darling?”
She sat silent a moment—a moment that seemed interminable to the anxious
young hunter—with flushed face and downcast eyes. The next, she was
clasped in his strong arms, and he pressed a tender kiss on her brow, as
he said, in a low voice:
“Do you love me, Vinnie?”
The lovely, golden-brown head bent down until it was pillowed on his
bosom, the red, full lips were pressed half timidly to his, the deep,
loving blue eyes looked trustfully up into his own, and Clancy knew that
she was his till death!
“My own darling Vinnie!” said he, proudly.
“Yes,” she whispered, “yours always!”
I am afraid if the woodman could have seen the little episode that was
taking place in the cabin then, he would have thought Clancy just the
least bit forgetful of the injunction he had put upon him when he went
away—of course he would not willfully ignore it!
There was a slight, almost imperceptible sound outside the cabin, that
escaped the young hunter’s usually quick ear, and a dark face was
pressed for an instant against one of the lower panes of the little
window at the side of the door. It was withdrawn almost as soon as it
appeared.
“And you will be my wife, Vinnie—mine to love and cherish always?”
Clancy went on.
“Yes.”
“And your father? What will he say?”
“I do not think he will oppose us very strongly,” she said, remembering
his words to her that afternoon.
“We will ask him and see, when he comes back.”
Again that dark face peered into the room a moment and then vanished as
it had done before.
But so engrossed were they with each other—their minds so filled with
their new-found happiness—that they had no time to think of any thing
else.
“How hard I shall try to be worthy of your priceless love, and to make
your life happy!” said the young hunter, as she released herself from
his embrace. As she stood up, her eyes were turned toward the window.
The face was flattened against the glass again!
“Merciful Heaven!” she cried, “there is Ku-nan-gu-no-nah! Oh, Clancy,
save me!”
CHAPTER XIV.
VINNIE A PRISONER.
Darke had been gone but a little while from the cabin, before he was
startled by the report of fire-arms, and the shrill war-whoop of the
band of Indians who, under the leadership of the wily Ku-nan-gu-no-nah,
had been sent out to capture Vinnie and bring her to the relief of the
suffering Forest Rose, who, although they knew it not, was dead, having
dropped quietly and peacefully away soon after they left the encampment.
These sounds came from the direction of the cabin, and by a kind of
intuitive perception, he knew in an instant what was taking place there.
He had just discharged his rifle at a fine turkey that the blood-hound
had come upon in a dense thicket; and reloading it as he ran, he dashed
with his utmost speed through the tangled undergrowth and over fallen
trees and heaps of half-decayed brushwood back toward the scene of the
conflict, which still continued, as the sharp, oft-repeated reports of
guns and the appalling screeches of the Indians attested.
The terrible suspense and agony of mind that he suffered in the few
minutes that passed before he reached the edge of the clearing, it would
be impossible to depict. He knew that the young hunter was as brave as a
lion, and would not give up while life lasted; but he judged from the
steady and rapid fire kept up by the savages that the odds against him
were fearful.
“My God!” he gasped, as he bounded forward, holding his long rifle ready
for use at an instant’s warning, “the bloody fiends will butcher them
both! If I could only be there to help them!”
Suddenly, as he ceased speaking, the firing, which for two or three
minutes past had been almost incessant, stopped. There was a moment of
awful silence to the listening woodman, then there came a loud crash.
Darke knew what this was.
“Heavens!” he cried, “the devils have forced the door! Nothing can save
them now! Their doom is sealed! Oh, Vinnie! Vinnie!”
His agony was terrible.
He had reached the boundary of the clearing. It was rapidly growing dark
now, and he had little fear of discovery. He paused a moment to
reconnoiter. Only two Indians were visible outside the cabin. He raised
his rifle to his face; his aim was quick and sure; and an instant later
one of the savages threw up his arms, and with an ear-splitting screech
of agony, fell on his face, dead.
Almost simultaneously with the report of the woodman’s trusty weapon,
another rung out inside the cabin.
“It is Vinnie’s revolver!” muttered Darke as he stepped quickly out of
sight behind a clump of bushes and proceeded to reload. “Thank God she
yet lives!”
Peering out, he discovered that the remaining Indian had set fire to the
cabin and was skulking around the other side, probably to get out of
range of his unerring rifle.
It was nearly dark now, but the settler fired again, and a bullet went
crashing through the savage’s brain, just as he had almost gained the
coveted shelter.
Vinnie’s revolver cracked again inside the cabin as Darke rammed home
another load; and he uttered another fervent “Thank God!” as he thought
that she had been saved thus far. At his request, she had placed it upon
her person that morning, and he had reason to think that it was being
fired by her own hands. He could not distinguish the sound of Clancy’s
weapon from the Indians’; but he knew him well enough to be certain that
he would not yield except with his life.
The fire was creeping up the side of the cabin, gaining ground rapidly
in the dry timber of which it was constructed. In a few moments the
whole building would be in a light blaze. An attempt to extinguish the
flames would, Darke saw, be fruitless.
There was no one to oppose his advance across the clearing since he had
slain the two savages left on the outside to fire the cabin and guard
against a surprise by any one from without, and closely followed by
Death, he dashed over the intervening space to the open door of the
cabin.
Looking within he saw, by the light of the fire blazing on the hearth,
that Clancy Vere was engaged in a desperate, hand-to-hand struggle with
three Indians. His back was against the wall, and with an almost
superhuman effort he forced them back and kept them at bay with his
clubbed rifle. Their guns were not loaded; but the young hunter detected
one of the trio in the act of charging his rifle, while the two others
vainly tried to get at him with their knives, and, quickly whipping out
his six-shooter, one chamber of which held a leaden bullet that soon
proved a quietus to this most dangerous of his assailants, he discharged
it and had only two enemies to contend with.
The next moment the young hunter’s clubbed weapon fell with deadly force
upon the head of one of the Indians, crushing it like an egg-shell,
while at the same instant the other fell, pierced through the brain by a
ball from Darke’s unerring rifle.
Clancy had fought like a tiger, and though he had not been dangerously
wounded, he had not escaped unscathed. A bullet fired through the
window, before the Indians had forced an entrance through the
battered-down door of the cabin, had grazed his temple, making an ugly
though not dangerous furrow, and carrying away a portion of his ear. The
blood was trickling down his face, and dropping upon the floor at his
feet.
Darke sprung into the room at a single bound.
“Vinnie!” he cried. “Where is Vinnie?”
“Gone!” gasped Clancy.
“Gone! My God! what do you mean?”
“The Indians made her a prisoner!”
“Vinnie! My Vinnie a prisoner in the hands of those devils! And you let
them take her?”
“Stop!” exclaimed the young man, while an expression of keen pain swept
across his face. “I could not help it! I would gladly have laid down my
life to save hers! For a time we fought them side by side. There are
five dead Indians here on the floor. She killed two of them. Only two of
the chambers of her revolver were loaded; and after they were emptied I
fought them alone, shielding her form with mine. Then I was set upon
from all sides at once, and she was snatched away from me. I did all I
could. She was _my_ Vinnie, too, Mr. Darke, and I will wrest her from
the power of that red demon or die in the attempt! You do me injustice!”
“Pardon me, boy,” said the woodman, extending his hand, which was
readily taken by Clancy. “I was mad! I did not mean what I said—please
forget it if you can. If we can not get her back, I believe I shall go
crazy!”
“Oh, we _can_ get her back—we _must_!” cried the young hunter. “We must
get help and follow them and take her out of their hands or die!”
“How many are there in the party?” asked Darke.
“I am not certain. At the beginning I think there were about a dozen or
fifteen—I do not know exactly. Five are dead.”
“There are seven dead!” replied Darke. “I shot two outside!”
“Then there must be a half-dozen, more or less, that have escaped,
taking Vinnie with them.”
“They have been gone twenty minutes,” said the woodman; “and we must act
at once!”
“We can not follow them to-night,” said Clancy.
“Not to-night! Why?” and Darke evinced disappointment.
“Because they are mounted. They left their horses at the edge of the
forest. It is scarcely three miles away. Before we could overtake them
they would be miles out on the prairie, riding at their horses’ best
speed. We can do nothing alone, and horses are indispensable—we must
have them.”
“Where can we get them?” Darke asked, admitting to himself the truth of
Clancy’s reasoning.
“At the settlement. We can have every thing ready to-night and start
before daybreak.”
“Who do you think we had better get to go with us?” asked Darke. “We
must have good men.”
“I think we can do no better than to have Pete Wimple for one,” said
Clancy. “A truer and braver man can not be found in the North-west.”
“True,” said the woodman. “And the big hunter for another!”
“If we could only get him!” exclaimed Clancy.
“I’m sure he will go. He hates the Indians with an undying hatred, and
is glad of any opportunity to wreak his terrible vengeance on them for
the cold-blooded butchery of his aged parents.”
“Yes,” said the young hunter, “he told me his story. What a fiend
incarnate the chief is!”
“You mean Ku-nan-gu-no-nah. Was he with the party?”
“He led them,” said Clancy. “I think he instigated the attack to get
possession of Vinnie.”
The youth shuddered as he thought what might be her fate in such hands.
How he longed for the morning.
Darke remembered the promise he had made to Leander Maybob the day
before, and wondered if he could restrain himself from shooting the red
demon at sight.
“Do you think we will need any one else?” he asked.
“I think not. There will be four of us; and Pete Wimple and the giant
hunter will be a host in themselves.”
“We must make all our preparations to-night,” said Darke, “so as to be
far on our way at daylight.”
“Yes. We must— What’s that? It sounds like fire!”
A strange sound had arrested his attention.
“It _is_ fire!” replied Darke. “I saw one of the devils fire the cabin.
It must be all in a light blaze before this time!”
“Then it was fired before you came in?”
“Yes. It was set at the rear, and that is the reason you have not seen
or heard it till now. The flames were climbing the roof as I crossed the
clearing. But we must not stay here. One of us must go to the settlement
and the other to the cavern to-night. Do you think you can walk well
enough to undertake to get to the settlement? Your ankles must be—”
“Yes,” and the look on his face confirmed what he said, “I could do any
thing—brave any thing for her! There is nothing that I would not attempt
to save her from pain—nothing that I would not dare, to make her happy!
Vinnie is more to me than my life, Mr. Darke! To-day, before those red
devils came to tear her away from me, she promised to become my wife.”
“I believe you, boy!” exclaimed Darke. “I could not intrust her to the
protecting love of a better man. If we can only save her she shall be
yours!”
“Thank you,” said the young man, earnestly. “We _must_ save her from
that demon’s power! The thought that she is in his hands is maddening!
But we must act. I will go to the settlement and obtain horses and
enlist Pete Wimple in our cause, while you proceed to the cave to secure
the services of the big hunter. I’m sure he will not refuse us his aid.”
“Right,” assented Darke. “Where shall be our place of rendezvous?”
“Near the big pine tree at the edge of the forest. We must be mounted
and on our way before daylight.”
The fire had caught in the great oak trees that had been left close up
by the walls of the woodman’s home as a partial protection against wind
and storm, and the flames, shooting heavenward, cast a lurid glow over
the dark forest for quite a distance in every direction.
The two men hastened away, the burning cabin lighting their way through
the wood, Death, the blood-hound keeping close to Darke and manifesting
his sense of the calamity that had overtaken them by giving utterance
ever and anon to low, sorrowful whines.
CHAPTER XV.
WHAT THE SCOUTS FOUND.
When the sun rose the next morning—for the day broke clear and cloudless
with a keen, frosty atmosphere—its rays fell on a heap of smoldering
ruins, encircled by a dozen charred trees burnt and blackened to their
very tops. This was all that remained of Emmett Darke’s cabin home.
The four men, Darke, Clancy Vere, Leander Maybob, the giant hunter, and
Pete Wimple, a tried and trusty scout and Indian-fighter, were at the
appointed place of rendezvous at a very early hour, and, well mounted on
four fleet, strong horses that Clancy and the scout had obtained at the
settlement, they were at daybreak dashing over the smooth, level prairie
in pursuit of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and his party.
For hours they kept on at a rapid, even gallop, which they neither
quickened nor slackened. Clancy and the scout, riding side by side and
keeping a sharp look-out ahead for any signs of the enemy, while Darke
and the giant hunter were ever on the alert to guard against the
approach of any hostile party from the rear.
None of the four had spoken more than a few words since they left the
big pine, hours before, even Leander Maybob, usually so loquacious,
maintaining a thoughtful and unbroken silence.
The day continued as it had dawned, clear and sun-shiny, the pure,
bracing air inspiring the little band to more than common vigilance and
alertness, while it added fresh vigor to their steeds, and they kept on
at the same quick, regular rate of speed until mid-day without meeting
with adventure of any kind.
Then Pete Wimple drew his horse up suddenly, and in obedience to his
low-spoken command, the three others reined in their horses.
“What is it, Pete?” asked Clancy.
“I don’t know for sartin,” and the scout, shading his eyes with his
hand, looked long and earnestly across the wide, grassy plain before
them. Following the direction of his gaze, the others saw dimly in the
distance a thin blue cloud of smoke rising from the surface of the
prairie.
“It’s a fire!” said Darke.
“That it are!” confirmed the big hunter.
“Can it be a camp-fire?” asked Clancy.
“Very likely,” said the scout. “I think as how it’s some-’eres ’long the
line of the emigrant trail. We’ll strike it purty quick—it’s jist ahead
thar—and we’ve got to foller it for severil hours. We’ve got to pass
that fire, and afore we get too cluss, I want to know what it means!”
“It mought be whites, an’ ag’in it mought be reds!” said Leander Maybob,
riding to the front and examining the thin, vapory cloud for a moment or
two. “It mought be emigrants takin’ thar grub and it moughtn’t, ye see.
Prob’ly ’tis and prob’ly ’tain’t, as my uncle Peter said when Elder
Tugwoller axed him if his youngest-born son war a boy or a gal!”
The others could not restrain a laugh at this; and when their merriment
had subsided Darke asked:
“What do you think is best to be done, Wimple? You and Leander are
learned in every department of prairie life and warfare, while Clancy
and I are the merest novices. We shall trust ourselves and our
enterprise in your hands.”
“I think, as it’s about grub time, you and me had better ride ahead and
diskiver, if we can, whether there’s white men or Injuns or suthin’ else
around that are smudge, or whether its jest a muskeeter smoke, while
Low-lander, as you calls him, and the boy busies ’emselves about gittin’
suthin’ for our appetites ag’in’ our return.”
“I agree with ye thar!” said the giant, “as Elder Tugwoller remarked to
my daddy when he expressed his opinion as how donations was a good
institution; but my name ain’t Low-lander.”
“What’s in a name?” laughed Darke as he and the scout rode away.
“Thar’s a good deal in names, I notice,” said the big hunter, half
musingly, as he swung his long left leg over his horse’s head and
slipped to the ground. “I reckon thar’s a sight o’ valler in names. If
’twasn’t for folks bein’ named so’s to tell ’em apart, they’d git all
mixed and twisted up so a feller couldn’t tell w’ich from t’uther or
t’uther from w’ich! Now I don’t go very strong for seein’ things git all
mixed and twisted up so’s ye can’t discrimernate w’ich from w’ich. If it
hadn’t been fer jest sich a durn’d mixin’ and twistin’ of two different
things together in my head, I’d likely now be a married man, livin’ as
happy as a hornet in yer breecherloons, down to old Maybob Center in
Massachusetts, the Bay State and capital of Bosting, the hub of the
univarsal _terry firmy_. It’s an awful world we’re livin’ in,” he went
on, as he tied his horse, as Clancy had already done, by means of
lariats they had brought with them. “It’s an awful world! I never know’d
a man to go cl’ar through it ’ithout gittin’ the wind knocked outen him
somehow! It’s this mixin’ an’ twistin’ as does it all! It’s that as
caused all my misery and pains and heart-longin’s, and sighin’s and so
forth and so on. I know folks in gin’ral wouldn’t go for to take me for
a lovyer—you, now, youngster, look more like a lovyer than I do; sorter
like a despondin’ lovyer, more’n any thing. But don’t ye git
down-hearted now. We’re a-goin’ to git yer sweetheart back to-day! I’ll
tell you how I found out about it,” he explained, noting Clancy’s look
of surprise, “I heerd ye talkin’ about her afore ye come to, fairly,
yisterday. I didn’t mean ter hear yer, and didn’t go fer to pry into any
of yer secrets; but I couldn’t help hearin’ ye say ev’ry few minits,
‘Vinnie!’ ‘Vinnie!’ I heerd Darke say his gal’s name was that to-day;
and so I put this and that together and know’d you was her lovyer. I’ll
tell you ’bout my gal an’ my love affair, and then we’ll be even. All
our trouble come of this mixin’ an’ twistin’, as I told you afore. Elder
Tugwoller’s niece, Sally Niver, as purty a gal as ever wore caliker—she
used to live along o’ the Elder and his wife—and me got acquainted with
each other to singin’ school, and afore we know’d it we was both on us
purty nigh as deep into love as Lord Lovel and the Lady Nancy. The Elder
didn’t ’prove of the match, and Sally an’ me uster spark on the sly. The
Elder found it out and licked Sally and forbid her ever to speak to me
ag’in. She cum right straight and told me, and said as how the Elder and
Miss Tugwoller would be away Saturday night over to the widder Mork’s
and wanted me to come down an’ see her while they was gone. I rigged up
and went down; and jest as I got inside the yard I see Sally cummin,
down the path to meet me, and the tears was a-streamin’ down her face.
‘They ain’t gone, deary!’ sez she, ‘and if they see you we’ll be in an
awful pickle!’ I couldn’t go away without inquirin’ what was the matter.
‘Oh!’ sez she, ‘I’ve had to take—uncle’s bin a-givin’ me—’ ‘Another
lickin’ I’ll be bound!’ sez I. ‘Sally, yer mine, afore Heaven, and I’m
a-goin’ to trounce that old cuss within an inch of his life for abusin’
ye so, if he is the preacher!’ ‘Oh dear!’ sez she. ‘You don’t understand
he—oh, what’ll you do? Thar he comes now!’ And sure enough, I looked up
and thar come the Elder down the path a-makin’ motions and a-swingin’ a
big hosswhip. I thought he was a-goin’ to lick Sally ag’in, and she
screamed and I jumped afore her. Jest then the hosswhip cracked round my
legs. ‘Young man,’ sez the Elder, ‘you’ve got things kinder mixed and
twisted up, like, in your mind. Your mind’s considerably mixed and
twisted. You don’t understand as how I don’t want ye here at all, and
you’ve got mixed and twisted up about the lickin’, like. I hain’t bin
a-givin’ my niece a cowhidin’; I jest give her a dose of peppersass for
a cold, and that’s what brings the water outen her eyes. I’m goin’ to
give the cowhidin’ to you!’ And he axed the blessin’ and commenced. The
gad played kinder lively for a minit, then I jerked it outen his hand
and throw’d it over into the garden, and sez I, ‘Elder, if you think I’m
goin’ to stand sich you must be kinder mixed and twisted up, like, in
your idees!’ Then I knocked him down and kissed Sally good-by and walked
away. I hain’t never seen her since. The Elder sent her away to school
and I come West—and that’s the end on’t all. I s’pose she’s married long
ago!” he finished, sadly. “She was jest the sort of gal as ketches men!
It was all owin’ to my mixed and twisted state of mind concernin’ the
lickin’ and the peppersass!”
By the time they had prepared the noon-day meal, Clancy saw Darke and
Wimple coming back; and in less than ten minutes they threw themselves
from their horses a few rods away, and after tethering them, came up
with rapid strides.
“What did you find?” asked Clancy eagerly; “any signs of Vinnie or her
captors?”
“We found some of the devil’s own handiwork!” answered the scout, a
dark, fierce look on his usually pleasant face that the young hunter
never saw there before.
“The smoke we saw arises from two burning emigrant wagons that the
Indians have plundered and then set fire to!” said Darke. “One man,
evidently the guide, lay dead and scalped, his body, with those of three
savages who had been shot in the affray, half burned up in the fire! The
remainder of the party, which I should judge was not very large, have
either escaped or been made prisoners.”
“It is Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s work!” said Clancy.
“I’ve made up my mind to settle with him purty soon!” said Leander
Maybob, sternly. “His time’s most up!”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PHANTOM RIDER!
Five minutes later the little party was on the move again.
About the middle of the afternoon they halted for a moment’s
consultation. Darke was not surprised when the scout informed him that
the Indian encampment was not more than a half-dozen miles distant. He
had long been anxious to reach the village. The suspense was growing to
be almost unendurable to him.
At first, Leander Maybob took little part in the conversation and bent
his gaze anxiously every few minutes upon the horizon in the direction
whence they had come.
“Would you advise a bold charge through the Indian encampment?” asked
Clancy. “Do you think we would be likely to accomplish our object in
that way?”
The scout thought not. The savages might be on the look-out for some
such movement as that, as they would probably expect that an attempt
would be made to rescue Vinnie, in which case they would run great risk
of falling into some trap set for them by the Indians, if they
approached the encampment boldly and in the full glare of the sunlight.
Their party was too small to hazard being taken at so great a
disadvantage. They dared not show themselves openly in the camp of their
enemies. The odds would be too great against them.
“No!” said Wimple, emphatically. “We mustn’t try such a plan as that. It
would be worse than useless! What we do must be done by stratagem.
There’s a steep bluff, only ’tain’t a bluff, neither—thar ain’t no river
under it—jist back of the Injin camp. This hill’s all grown over with
low scrub-oak and other stuff so thick ye can’t see a rod any way. If we
could only git up there and hide till arter dark, and then two or three
of us jist step quietly down and release the prisoners, leaving some one
to have the horses ready to mount at an instant’s warnin’, I think we
could git the gal cl’ar without much blood-lettin’, and maybe the other
prisoners, whoever they are. It’s the best plan I can think of now.”
Darke agreed with the scout that nothing could be done by daylight, but
he was getting very impatient.
“I think,” said the big hunter, “as how ye’re partly right in yer
calkerlations and mayhap partly wrong. I don’t believe as how us four
rushing into the imps’ nest would do much good. We’d be very likely to
git our little lump of lead, every one on us, and that’d be the end on’t
all; but instid o’ climbin’ the hill, if ye’ll jist take the advice of
one who has fit Injins some, and stop in the border of the wood, down
level with the edge of the prairie, and wait and see what happens, I
b’lieve we can do suthin’ as ’ll amount to suthin’. I’ve knowed some of
the best kind of jobs to be did in gittin’ away prisoners from the reds,
jist by watchin’ and takin’ advantage of accidents and the like. If
you’ll all do jist as I say and not git flustered or go to gittin’ away
up there on top of the hill, I’ll promise that every prisoner in the
Indian camp shall be safe before sundown—yes, in less than two hours.
You don’t know what amazin’ helps accidents is sometimes, in sich cases
as this one!”
“Can you do it?” asked Darke, eagerly.
“Yes.”
“What do you mean by accidents?” inquired Pete Wimple. “What d’ye
expect’s goin’ to happen to-day?”
“Thar’s no tellin’ exactly,” replied the big hunter. “A feller can’t
most always tell what is goin’ to take place. But I’m safe in
guaranteein’ thirty or forty of them reds one of the tallest accidents
in a little while—’bout as soon as we can git to their camp—they ever
had any ijee of!”
“Do you expect to kill as many as that?” asked Clancy, in some
wonderment.
“I calkerlate as how, if yer a mind to foller my lead, we can e’en
a’most clean out the nest and git yer gal and the rest of the prisoners
away safe, besides! What do ye say? Shall I go ahead?”
“Yes,” cried all three with one voice. “You shall lead us!”
“I believe you can do what you say!” added Darke. “But remember that a
mistake on our part might prove fatal to Vinnie and the others!”
“There shan’t be no balks or mistakes!” said the giant, in a tone of
assurance, taking his place at the head of the party. “We’ve got to
leave this emigrant road here and take to the left a little. An hour’s
sharp ridin’ ’ll bring us to the Injun camp. Let’s be movin’ on.”
And tightening their reins, the quartette dashed away.
There was a plain trail, left by Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s band, leading
directly to the encampment of the savages. The little party followed
this for a while at a swift gallop, and then in obedience to a low,
tersely-spoken command from their leader, left it suddenly, and bearing
still further to the left, dashed for a few minutes through the edge of
a broad belt of timber lying along the base of a range of low hills,
halting at last in a chapparal not more than a hundred yards distant
from the Indian village.
“Here we are,” said Leander Maybob, throwing himself off his horse.
“Jist git off yer nags and stretch yerselves a little, while I take a
look outside. Make the most outen your restin’-spell, for I can tell yer
that ye won’t have long to lay idle. I’m expectin’ an accident soon!”
And with these strange words which the three men were assured held more
meaning than they expressed, the giant strode away and disappeared from
view among the shrubbery. In less than five minutes he came back, and
his face showed that the result of his reconnoissance was satisfactory.
“There’ll be an accident soon,” said he.
“How soon?” queried the scout.
“Inside of a quarter of an hour.”
“Will it assist us in any manner?” inquired Darke.
“Yes; it’ll be the makin’ of our job.”
“How?” asked Clancy.
“It’s onsartin,” replied the big hunter. “Accidents is onsartin things;
but this one ’ll be sartin to help us if we’re ready to help ourselves.
I’ve noticed as how the same accident don’t happen twice, any more’n a
boy takes his fust chaw of terbacker twice. ’Tain’t anyways likely this
’ere accident we’ve been waitin’ for ’ll happen more’n onc’t. So we must
be ready to take advantage of it jest at the right minit! Now then, how
many shots have we got altogether?”
“I’ve got a six-shooter and a rifle, both loaded,” said the scout.
“Seven,” said Leander, counting.
“And I’ve got six,” said Clancy.
“Thirteen,” counted the big hunter.
“And I’ve got two revolvers and a rifle,” said the scout.
“Twenty-six,” said the giant, “and I’ve got seven more—thirty-three in
all. If there ain’t any of ’em wasted, we can shoot jist thirty-three
Injuns without stopping to load! Now git on yer horses and stick yer
pistols in yer belts and hold yer rifles ready for instant use. I want
to take one more look-out, and I’ll be with ye in a minit.”
The big hunter’s prompt manner and cool, baffling way of talking had
inspired the three men with the utmost confidence in himself and his
power to bring their enterprise to a successful termination, and they
obeyed his orders implicitly. In a moment they were mounted, their
unerring rifles ready for use at a moment’s warning.
“Are we going to dash into the encampment?” asked Clancy, examining the
lock of his revolver.
“It looks like it,” answered the scout, sententiously.
“What can the accident be?” questioned Darke.
“That’s a riddle!” said Wimple.
“And a hard one to guess!” added the young hunter.
Just then the giant came running through the chapparal, and hastily
seizing his ride, which he had left standing against a tree, threw
himself upon the back of his horse and rode to the head of the little
band of wondering, anxious men.
“Wait a minit!” he half whispered.
There was a moment of dead silence, the four men almost holding their
breath in their suspense.
Then a shriek rung out on the air—a shriek that was half a wail, half a
curse—so weird and so unearthly that for a moment the blood seemed to
stand still in the veins of the three startled men.
“My God! What is that?” cried Darke.
“It’s the accident we’ve bin waitin’ for,” said the big hunter, calmly.
“It’s purty near time for us to take advantage of it. Git ready.”
At that moment there came from the direction of the Indian encampment an
almost deafening report, followed instantly by cries of agony and fear.
“Now’s our time!” cried the big hunter. “Shoot down every red-skin you
see! But don’t harm a hair of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s head if you can help
it! Take him alive!!”
As they cleared the chapparal, they saw a sight for which even the
terrible cry of a moment before had not prepared them.
It was a gigantic human skeleton, standing upright on the back of a
milk-white horse that moved with more than the speed of the wind. In the
bony, grisly arms of the Phantom Rider was _Vinnie Darke_!
CHAPTER XVII.
A REUNION OF HEARTS.
“It is Vinnie!” cried Darke, wildly. “Oh God, save my child!”
“Heavens!” exclaimed the young hunter, in the same breath. “What is
that? Oh! my darling! She is lost! lost!” and he reeled in his saddle.
“Easy!” said the giant. “She is safe, and you shall both speak with her
in a few minutes. It is Meno, the Spirit Warrior! He never harms the
whites—he is their friend; and he’ll carry the gal to a place of safety.
Git yer rifles ready. When ye see Injuns, fire sure, and don’t miss a
shot. After yer rifles are emptied, git out yer pistols and shoot down
ther devils as long as yer have a load left! They won’t show fight much
after the accident that’s jist happened to ’em!”
A moment later they had left the timber behind, and were dashing across
the little strip of prairie that lay between it and the encampment, but
a few rods distant.
The four unerring rifles rung out almost simultaneously, and four
savages lay dead or dying on the ground.
“Now yer pistols!” shouted the giant, plunging his spurs into his
horse’s flanks, and drawing and cocking his heavy Colt’s revolver.
On they sped, their firearms keeping up an incessant rattle, dealing
death on all sides.
They charged through the encampment, then, whirling, came back,
separating and shooting down every brave in their path, as long as they
had a load left.
The giant caught sight of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah trying to hide himself behind
one of the lodges, and leaping from his horse, dragged the cowed and
trembling fiend out into the middle of the encampment, shrieking and
howling with fear.
“It’s time we had a sort of a settlement!” said the giant, grimly. “I
guess we’ll look over our accounts now.”
The Indians, men, women and children, such as had not fallen before the
terrible Phantom Rider and the subsequent charge of the four hunters,
had sought refuge in the forest and thick brushwood growing on the
summit of the steep, rocky acclivity at the back of the encampment.
To the credit of our friends, be it said, that they shot down only the
braves. For the most part, the squaws and children escaped unharmed, but
with the exception of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and a half-dozen others, every
warrior was slain.
“Where’s the whites?” the giant asked the chief, with his long, bony
fingers choking out the answer:
“Yonder, in the council-house.”
Following the direction of the chief’s eye, they saw a log building, the
only one in the encampment, about twenty yards distant. It had the
appearance of being very strongly put up, and had evidently been built
with a view to use as a council-house.
Darke and the scout hastened to liberate the captives, while Clancy,
attracted thither by the loud snarls and yelps proceeding from the
interior, went and looked over the top of a small stockade, or rather
pen, about ten feet square, standing a little at one side.
“My heavens!” he cried. “It’s full of wolves!”
“Wolves!” repeated the big hunter, as he finished binding his cowed and
terrified captive to a stake near by. “How many on ’em?”
“Eight,” returned Clancy, counting. “Shall I shoot them?”
“No,” said the giant avenger, a sudden thought entering his mind. “We
may have use for ’em bimeby!”
“Use for them! How?” asked the young hunter.
For answer, the giant pointed to Ku-nan-gu-no-nah!
“Come,” he said, “let’s go and take a look at the prisoners. They’re
free now. Thar’s two men and a woman; and one of the men’s got on a plug
hat and a white shirt and a swaller-tail coat and a standin’ collar and
a dirty choker,” he went on, as they drew near the liberated emigrants.
“He looks for all the world like a preacher!”
Just then the face of the man described by the giant—a smooth-shaven,
sanctimonious face, that had not been wrinkled with a smile for ten
years—was turned toward them, and the big hunter stopped and stood still
in his tracks a moment, overcome with astonishment, staring hard at the
emigrants, who, with Darke and Wimple, were advancing toward them.
Clancy regarded him with amazement.
“Gracious!” he said, at last, “it’s Elder Tugwoller! And oh, Lordy!
thar’s Sally! My Sally, I mean! Oh, Lord! it’s Sally! _Sally!_ Sally!”
he cried, and a moment later he had picked her off her feet, and was
holding her in his great, strong arms, as if she had been a baby.
She had recognized him when he called out to her, and flew to meet him.
The elder and the other man, as well as the rest of the party, were
regarding them with astonishment. Catching sight of the stranger,
Leander set Sally down as suddenly as he had taken her up, saying
anxiously, as he thought he might have been hugging another man’s wife:
“Are ye married, Sally? Is that yer man?”
“No, Leander,” she replied, throwing herself again into his arms; and
after vainly trying to reach her hands around his neck—for she was very
short, her head reaching but a little above his elbows—she buried her
blushing face, not in the orthodox style in his bosom, but in his fur
vestment somewhere below. “No, Leander, I hain’t married. I wouldn’t
never marry no man but you! I’ve had fifteen offers since I see you
last, and I refused ’em all! I thought we’d meet ag’in sometime, the
good Lord willin’!”
“And he _was_ willin’, Sally! Yer mine now, ain’t ye?”
“Yes,” she replied, “your’n allers—till the Bunker Hill monument
crumbles to dust!”
“And we won’t never git things mixed and twisted ag’in?”
“No,” said she; “nothin’ shan’t never part us ag’in!”
And the long-sundered hearts were reunited.
“Sarah,” said the Elder, through his nose, “are you going to marry with
that ungodly man of strife?”
“Yes, uncle Tugwoller,” she answered; “I’m a-goin’ to marry that same
ungodly man of strife, an’ be jist as good a wife to him as I know how!”
Darke was beginning to evince great anxiety to see his daughter once
more, and the ludicrous reunion of the big hunter and his old-time
sweetheart, that he had just witnessed, somehow made Clancy long to meet
Vinnie.
“Come,” said the woodman, “let us go at once.”
“Wait a few minits,” answered the now happy Leander. “We’ve got a little
bizness to attend to yet. I’ve got Ku-nan-gu-no-nah tied to a stake down
thar, and it’s about time he retired from bizness. He’s committed
crimes—blacker ones than ye can imagine—and he must have his punishment.
We’ll give him a trial before we finish him off. Come on.”
And he led the way back to the open space in the center of the
encampment, where, to the same stake to which Ku-nan-gu-no-nah had so
often bound his captives, he was himself tied so securely that, struggle
as he might, he could not get free, and knowing that his doom was at
hand, he had made superhuman efforts to break his bonds, but without
avail. He was completely cowed; at the last, all his courage and
hardihood seemed to have left him, and he stood, quaking with terror,
his dusky face blanched to an ashen hue!
“Now,” said the big hunter, laying his hand on the Indian’s shoulder,
“ef any one here has got any charges to prefer ag’in’ the prisoner at
the stake, the court is ready to attend to the case.”
“The prisoner pulled off my dicky to-day,” said the Elder, dolorously,
“and otherwise disarranged my apparel. I think he deserves condign
punishment!”
But other charges of graver import were to come.
“He shot our guide,” said Sally Niver; “and put his arm round my waist,
when he lifted me out of the wagon, and no decent man would do
that—unless he had a right to,” she added, with a glance at Leander. “I
think he ought to be hung for murderin’ the guide, anyway!”
“He killed my brother John!” said Wimple.
“He butchered my old father and mother!” said the giant, “and he’s got
to die an awful death for it! If any one here thinks he ought to live
after committin’ all these crimes, let him speak!”
There was no voice to speak against the execution of the giant’s
sentence, and he said:
“Shall he live or die? I’ll give him one more chance.”
“Let him die!” was the answer; and almost before the startled spectators
realized what had taken place, Leander Maybob had cut the thongs that
bound the doomed chief to the stake, and rearing him above his head,
hurled him over the low stockade, among the snarling, half-famished
wolves!
Retribution had come at last! He had expiated his many crimes! The
vengeance of Leander and Alonphilus Maybob was accomplished!
A few moments later, the whole party rode out of the almost depopulated
Indian village, the liberated captives mounted on some Indian ponies
that they had found tethered near by.
“Now, Mr. Darke, we’ll go to yer gal!” said Leander.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUSION.
In a little chapparal not far away they found Vinnie, and near her,
sitting on the ground, was Alonphilus, the dwarf. At a little distance
was tethered the white horse—there could be no mistaking it—the same
milk-white steed that had carried the ghastly form of Meno, the Spirit
Warrior, as he rushed by them a little while before, bearing the girl in
his grisly embrace.
Pete Wimple approached the animal, as it stood quietly picking at the
beaten-down prairie grass, and then kindly touched it once or twice on
the back.
“What ye doin’?” asked Leander. “Tryin’ to see if it’s well groomed?”
“No; I was tryin’ to make up my mind if ’twas ra’al, ginuine hoss-flesh,
or jist a shadder.”
“It’s a real hoss!” said the giant, stooping, while all their eyes
followed every motion curiously, and stretching up the ghastly length of
the bony frame of a large, powerfully-built man from out of the thick
grass at his feet. “And here’s the Spirit Warrior as has killed and
scart to death more Injins in the last six years than ten men could
finish off in the old-fashioned way in ten years! My little brother,
thar on the ground, a-tyin’ a big knot in the end of that string, ain’t
very wide acrost, as ye can see, and the space atween the ribs of this
’ere thing is big anuff for him to crawl in all over. So, when he gits
inside of it, and stands upon that white hoss and flings bomb-shells,
and fires off rockets among a pack of reds, I guess they think he’s one
of the tallest kind of spirit warriors, and about the worst _accident_
as ever befell ’em! I’m a sort of a vantriloquizer, and I uster hide in
the woods, and holler like Meno, the spirit, is said to.”
Darke, leaving Vinnie and Clancy to the enjoyment of each other’s
society for a few moments, had come forward while the giant was
speaking, and as he finished, he said:
“And that explains the mystery of the oaken chest, also, does it not?”
“That’s all there is of the hull mystery and the hull secret,” said the
giant, in reply. “I don’t mind tellin’ about it now, cause I’m a-goin’
to marry and retire from bizness. My uncle Peter—and he was a
unavarsal—”
“But your brother is dumb. How did he produce that awful screech?”
Alonphilus raised a small, curiously contrived whistle to his lips, and
a moment later, the same wild, terrifying cry that they had heard
before, rung out on the air.
Ten minutes more, and they were again mounted and ready to set out for
the settlement.
“Sarah,” said the Elder, in his nasal voice, “I ask you again if you
contemplate becoming the helpmeet of that worldly man of conflict?”
“Yes, Uncle Tugwoller,” she replied, sweetly, reining her horse up by
the side of Leander’s. “You’ll marry us to-morrow, won’t you?”
“If I must,” he said, dolorously, tugging away at the corner of his
disarranged dicky, “if I must, and my remuneration is forthcoming.”
“You’ve triumphed, Sally,” said the giant lover, with a tender
intonation on the name. “My uncle Peter uster say as how a female would
if she wanted to, and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t. I hope the Elder
ain’t a gittin things mixed and twisted.”
It was after nightfall before the party arrived at the settlement. At
times along the way, the Elder experienced much difficulty in
maintaining his place on the back of his horse. Once he lost off his
dicky, but he bore the trip with surprising equanimity.
The Elder was alone in the world now, save for Sally, his wife having
died two years before.
With his niece, in company with Henry Black—the man whom, in our last
chapter, Leander suspected might be the husband of his sweetheart—the
Reverend Tugwoller was on his way to join a colony of eastern people
then forming in the far North-west, whither he had been called to act in
his ministerial capacity. Of course now that Sally had so happily—or
unfortunately, he would have said—met with her first and only love, and
they had been so felicitously reunited, this plan was abandoned; and the
next morning he pronounced them man and wife, at Pete Wimple’s, where
the company spent the night in the presence of our assembled friends. He
settled quietly down with his niece and her husband, who abandoned the
wilderness soon after and took up the life of a farmer in the interior
of Michigan. He tried in vain to bring Leander to a realizing sense of
his innate wickedness, and began to think at last that Sally might have
done worse, after all, when it came to his knowledge that the beatified
fellow was the fortunate possessor of two or three hundred acres of fine
land, clear of all claims, besides about five thousand dollars hard cash
that his father had received for his place in the East.
The dwarf dwelt with them and was tenderly cared for by his giant
brother and his kind-hearted sister-in-law, to the end of his life. He
always kept the death-record with the big knot at one end in
commemoration of the terrible charge of the four men through the Indian
encampment and the awful death of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, the slayer of his
parents.
Clancy and Vinnie were married in due time, and, with Emmett Darke, they
went farther south, and purchasing a farm lived very happily indeed.
Pete Wimple, the scout, is a gray-haired old man now; but his eye is as
clear and his form as erect as in the days of yore; and his story of the
chase and the war-path are the delight of all the boys in the
settlement.
Death, the blood-hound, died of old age twenty years ago.
THE END.
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Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
—Created a Table of Contents based on the chapter headings.
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