Chapter V: Silver Rifle Among Her Foes

There was no denying the fact—Dohma, the Chippewa, was dead. At least the girl would have sworn he was.

Silver Rifle held his head in her lap a long time before she gave him up.

She did not want to lose the young Indian when she needed him most, and now that he was gone, she feared that she would never find the ring.

“I’ll bury the foes side by side,” she murmured, relinquishing the heavy head, and approaching the fire. “They’ll not quarrel about me in the grave, I hope.”

She supplied herself with a torch from the fire, and moved to a spot some distance beyond the dead Indians, where earth instead of stone formed the floor of the cavern.

Selecting a long and sharp piece of slate, she digged or scooped out a large grave, and with Herculean strength dragged the two savages from the light. Tenderly she wrapped Dohma in a blanket, and placed him beside the furious chief who had sent him to the hunting-grounds of his people.

“I’m going to rest awhile, now,” she said, in a long-drawn breath, after finishing the work of burial, “and then I’m going into the woods again. Dohma was mistaken. But one White Tiger lives; there can not be another. I saw him on the lake one night, and since, I have seen him in the woods. He is a half-breed, too. If I meet him, he must pay for losing the ring, for undoubtedly the bauble which poor Dohma found in the forest was mine.”

When the sun sunk behind Chapel Rock and the shadows of night swept over lake and forest, Silver Rifle glided from the cave.

At the mouth of the entrance she found a strange boat, which belonged to Renadah, who had fallen before her arm. Doubtless he was on the water when Dohma bore his prize to the cave, and had followed in his canoe.

Quietly she stepped into the boat and sent it flying through the rocky gateways out into the calmer waters.

She coasted toward Chapel Rock, which she sounded, and presently, having scaled the cliff at a feasible point, found herself in the forest above. The canoe had been hidden among the fallen firs on the beach, and was secure from savage prowlers’ eyes.

The moon was giving tokens of an early visit to the nocturnal heavens, as Silver Rifle darted into the dangerous wood, apparently having some objective point in view.

She knew where two gigantic oaks grew side by side, and to this particular spot she was hastening.

The rising moon found her hurrying along the cliffs, and after traversing several miles, she suddenly wheeled to the left and advanced with caution.

Once or twice she stopped among the ghostly shadows, for the cry of a night-bird had greeted her ears, and she quite naturally associated the sound with the presence of enemies.

But no answering signals were heard, and she advanced again until she stood beneath the boughs of the trees she had sought.

Surely these were the two oaks mentioned by Dohma; they were the only two which stood together near the lake-shore.

“The ring will greet me with its glitter,” she muttered, searching around the trunks of the trees, and gradually describing larger circles, which drew her nearer the edge of the cliffs.

A pale moonlight flooded the ground, and more than once Silver Rifle was momentarily deceived by the glitter of lake pebbles, which by divers means had found their way into the forest, so far above their rocky bed.

“These are not the oaks!” she said at last, in despair, as she suddenly paused in her search. “Dohma meant other trees than these. And— Ha! what is yon dark object, and did it not move?”

Quickly her rifle dropped from her left arm, and the flint was gently drawn back, while her eye remained riveted upon the object which had startled her.

As she looked, the shape grew into the figure of a beast, and she at length concluded that it was dead. So she moved forward, and at length stood over the body of the panther which had wounded Ahdeek’s shoulder with his sharp teeth. She saw evidences of a struggle on the earth about the dead beast, and discovered that white and red had met there at no remote hour.

The discovery somewhat startled the girl, and as she rose to her feet, the cry of the night-hawk sounded terribly distinct in her ears. It seemed to emanate from a spot not twenty feet to her right. Slowly but deliberately she turned toward the spot, and the next instant several dark forms leaped from behind trees, and advanced upon her!

“Keep off, red-men!” she cried. “I have as yet spilled but little Chippewa blood, for I trail not your people. Stand off, I say, else there be—”

Her sentence was cut short by a shriek, for she found herself in the grasp of a stalwart savage who had approached her from the rear, while the trio engaged her attention in front.

“White girl no shoot Chippewa now,” laughed her captor, and presently Silver Rifle found herself standing in the midst of a war-party, hideously disfigured by paint. “White girl same as Dohma hunt,” quickly continued the chief. “Dohma tell Oagla he love girl whom he call Silver Rifle. White girl see Dohma?”

The girl shook her head, and the savages laughed.

“Dohma come home by um by an’ find Silver Rifle in Chippewa lodge.”

“Alas!” thought the girl, “Dohma would never return to his people.”

“Pale girl got pretty rifle,” said a tall young Indian, who wore a head-dress of hawk-feathers. “She have heap silver in her lodge. Let Hawkeye see rifle.”

With the last word the Chippewa put forth his hand, when, with a startling cry, the girl started violently back.

Something glittered in the moonlight on Hawkeye’s tiniest finger.

“What frighten pale girl?” demanded the chief, not wholly unfrightened himself.

“My ring! my ring!” cried Silver Rifle, starting forward. “Hawkeye, you’ve got my ring! Give it here!”

She pointed to the ring as she spoke; but the savage drew back, with an Indian oath.

“Ring Hawkeye’s,” he cried. “Him find it here by dead panther. Sequesta grabbed ring when Hawkeye saw it; so they fought for it, and Sequesta sleeps in Gitche Gumee. Girl shan’t have ring. It’s Hawkeye’s. Too pretty for Silver Rifle.”

“Then the price I shall pay for my own property shall be your blood!” cried the determined girl. “The glitter of that ring has drawn me from the white man’s greatest city. I will have it, and, for the last time, I demand it. Take it from your finger, Hawkeye!”

“Hawkeye keep ring,” was the determined response, and it still quivered his lips when the girl’s rifle cleared a space about her.

The savages saw they had a demoness to deal with, and admired her bravery as they shrunk from the clubbed rifle. She was but a girl—a young tigress in nature, among twenty braves, and they would humor her as the cat does the mouse.

All at once the butt of the weapon dropped to her shoulder, and the next instant a sharp report shot over the cliffs.

Hawkeye, with a groan, reeled in the throes of death, like a drunken man.

Through the smoke, which obscured her form, the brave huntress sprung, and, before the savages could recover from their surprise, she had wrenched the ring from the warrior’s finger, and was flying through the forest like a deer!

Hawkeye was dead. The little ring, which was to be the price of more than one life, had ended his days of savage glory, and the slayer was seeking safety in flight.

The eldest members of the war-party, recovering first, had started in pursuit, and the younger were not far in their rear. Once or twice they paused and tried to bring the girl down with the rifle; but she flitted in and out among the trees so as to destroy their aim.

One hand griped her silver rifle, the other held the ring, and more than once she shut the member tighter than ever to satisfy her heart that the prize was still her own.

She ran toward the spot where she had left Renadah’s boat, and at length disappeared in the rugged path that led down to the lake shore.

For some time she had not heard the footsteps of her pursuers, and, after hiding an hour among the rocks, she approached the beach. Quickly she drew the light craft from its hiding-place, and as she placed it in the water the click of a rifle-lock sounded above her head.

With a cry of horror she dropped the oar, and griped her rifle.

Half way up the path she saw a tufted head, and caught the glitter of a rifle-barrel before a jet of fire dazed her eyes.

A second later she lay motionless beside the boat, and the air resounded with yells of fiendish triumph.

Down the rugged path they came, and the foremost lifted Silver Rifle from the ground.

“Ball cut girl’s head!” he cried; “but,” looking up with eyes beaming with devilish satisfaction, “she no dead.”

The Indians crowded round with “ughs” of surprise.

“Silver Rifle no dead,” continued the warrior, “She live to die among the squaws. Oagla take ring. Him wear it now.”

At first Oagla’s hand shrunk from contact with the ring.

He thought of Hawkeye lying dead in the forest; but when he saw smiles of derision, with looks of covetousness, all about him, he took the ring, and dropped it into his medicine bag.

“Now, braves, back to the war-path!” he cried. “Omaha carry Silver Rifle. Oagla glad he did not kill her now. See that she does not escape; if she does, Omaha steps upon the death-trail.”

Then the band ascended to the forest again, Omaha, the giant, bearing the still unconscious girl in his arms, as though she were a babe.

In single file, through the ghostly forest, the Indians advanced, and by and by the body of Hawkeye was added to the train.

“Tell me where I am!” suddenly cried the captive, startling every Indian with her voice. “I recollect the boat, the red-skin on the cliff, then— Oh, heavens, am I really in the clutches of the fiends?”

“Silver Rifle in Omaha’s arms,” said the jailer, with a faint smile. “Indian shoot when girl go to get in boat.”

“And the ring! Where is that ring, chief?”

Omaha looked up and encountered Oagla’s eye.

“Ring in Gitche Gumee,” he answered. “It lost forever now.”

“Omaha lies!” boldly cried the Girl Trailer. “I saw the look your chief shot at you. He has the ring, and unless he gives it back to me he shall fall as Hawkeye fell.”

“Pale girl shoot Injuns no more,” was the response. “She die when she git to Chippewa’s lodge.”

“We’ll talk more of dying when we get there,” said Silver Rifle. “Fortune—”

Oagla suddenly turned toward the band, with uplifted hand, which broke the captive’s sentence.

Instantly every savage seemed to grow into a dusky statue.

From a spot quite a distance to the right, faint cries emanated, and the forest was tinged with a light that indicated a fire.

The savages remained silent for several moments, when Oagla started toward the spot.

“The Chippewas hold a prisoner,” he cried. “We will see him burn and hear his death-song.”

Obedient to their chieftain’s words, the savages started forward, and presently gained the summit of a wooded knoll which overlooked the torture-glen.

This spot was distant several miles from the Chippewa village, and had witnessed some of the most fiendish tortures ever inflicted by savage hands. When an enemy fell into the hands of the young braves, he was brought hither and tortured, and more than once they had spirited captives from the village and burned them here.

The war-party saw a white man lashed to a tree near the foot of the hill.

The flames were leaping at his throat with the ferocity of famished wolves, and he was boasting of fierce, vengeful triumphs over the kindred of his torturers.

“Ahdeek burns, but the White Tiger will avenge him!” cried the captive.

The savages on the hill looked into each others’ faces in surprise.

“He is the White Tiger,” said Oagla, “and yet he says he is not.”

Omaha was puzzled, and Nahma’s words rushed over Silver Rifle’s mind—“There be two White Tigers!”

Now she thought he spoke truly. Here was one; where was the other?

Her thoughts were broken by a wild cry, sent simultaneously from fifty throats.

The captive had leaped from the stake, kicked the firebrands into the faces of his torturers, and was running for life through the funereal recesses of the woods.

During his narration of daring deeds, he had been tugging at his cords, and success had crowned his efforts.

With yells of dismay and vengeance, the Indians gave chase, and Oagla’s braves joined them with cries at once understood.

Suddenly Silver Rifle, who had witnessed the change of fortune with a smile, jerked the jaunty mink-skin cap from her head, and waving it aloft, sent a hearty cheer of encouragement after the fugitive.

“God help the brave fellow!” she cried. “Chippewas, he’ll pay your young demons for this night’s work! And I’ll help him if we ever meet.”

The next moment Oagla stepped before her with a cry of hatred, and she went to the earth beneath his clenched hand.

He paid dearly in the future for that blow.