Chapter IX: The Indian Dogs

The first shots which the red grave-diggers fired at the escaping party roused the Indian village.

The braves who guarded Hondurah’s empty lodge sprung to their feet and listened intently.

Suddenly the sound of hasty feet greeted their ears, and a moment the sachem halted before them. He did not speak, but darted to the lodge, and throwing wide the curtains, leaped across the threshold.

Then a cry of rage and disappointment cleft the darkness of the lodge. The guards turned as Hondurah reappeared.

“Where Yucata?” he demanded.

“Gone to catch the owl that hooted.”

“Where Clearwater?”

“Gone to see Omaha put in the ground.”

For a moment the chief was silent.

“Hear rifles in the dark woods?” he said, half interrogatively, and while he finished the sentence, the shots were repeated.

“The pale-faces are in the forest,” he cried. “We catch ’em ’fore day,” and after issuing a few necessary orders, he and ten warriors hastened to the scene of conflict; and a moment after the denunciation which, at the close of our last chapter, rung from Chopah’s lips, they reached the scene of danger and death.

“What means this?” demanded Hondurah, striding into the midst of the baffled party. “Did Chopah allow the pale worms to crawl away? Where are they now? Where is Hondurah’s child?”

His glance fell upon the recumbent forms, and a moment later he sprung to the motionless body of the tomahawked trader.

“Ha!” he cried; “the trader never trade by Gitche Gumee any more. He kill last Chippewa: there, take that, white dog!”

With the last word, he bestowed a brutal kick on the body and turned to his braves again.

“Chopah, tell Hondurah all,” he commanded; and turning from the young braves whom he had called liars, Chopah, with folded arms, faced his sachem.

Intently Hondurah listened to the narrative until Chopah mentioned the name of his child.

Then he started forward and touched the speaker’s arm.

“Clearwater help whites?”

Chopah nodded.

“No, no, Chopah, don’t tell Hondurah this;” and for a moment the chief hid his eyes in his hands. “Do not tell him that Clearwater is a traitress.”

“Chopah never hides the truth,” was the reply reluctantly given. “The young braves—the braves who have lied—will say that Chopah speaks the right words. Braves—”

He paused suddenly, for the young warriors were gone! One by one, silent and sullen, they had sneaked unperceived from the spot, unable to withstand the anger of Hondurah, when Chopah should denounce them.

Hondurah smiled faintly at the chief’s consternation.

“Let them go,” said the latter chief. “They have basely deceived us, and at some other time they shall pay the penalty attached to deception. Clearwater fell beneath the aim of Chopah’s braves,” continued the chief; “but while we pursued the White Tiger and his tigress, a man came and stole her, and tore from their heads the scalps of our braves.”

“How does Chopah know that a man came?”

“By the mark on the tree.”

The tomahawk pointed to the White Tiger’s mark, and Hondurah stepped nearer and examined it.

“The White Tiger was far away when this was cut?” he asked, curiously.

“He was hunted by Chopah, who heard his flying feet in the forest.”

“Then,” said Hondurah, “_he_ lives!”

“The young braves have lied,” hissed Chopah, gritting his teeth, as he gazed upon the mark.

Hondurah folded his arms, drew himself to his full hight, and fastened his eye upon the terrible double cross.

His warriors watched him narrowly, and saw the sinews of anger, black and terrible, that swept across his face.

“Hondurah,” he said at length, “is father to a snake. That snake may live, for _he_ would hardly bear a corpse away. Warriors, Hondurah is a father no more; he is an avenger. Throw yourselves upon the trails of the pale-faces; but do not touch Clearwater. When you find her hiding-place, speed swiftly to Hondurah, for he, and he alone, shall punish the traitress.”

“Will he slay his own child?” asked an old warrior, meekly.

“Question not Hondurah,” was the stern reply. “Seek the white-faces. He will hunt the traitress, whose fate shall be more terrible than the wolf’s when the brave has trapped him. Watch now the caves of Gitche Gumee. Throw your selves at once upon the trail, and if Yucata crosses it, strike him dead and bring his scalp to me.”

With the last word the chief turned toward the village.

“What would Hondurah do?” questioned Chopah.

“Punish the young braves.”

“Beware, Hondurah,” said the chief. “The young braves are strong; they will strike back if Hondurah raises his hand. Let them go.”

The chief did not speak; but the silent motion of his lips seemed to frame that determined word, “Never!”

Chopah shook his head to his warriors as Hondurah turned for the second time.

He knew that his nation would soon be sachemless if Hondurah lifted an arm against the younger warriors, who certainly needed punishment for an act to be revealed hereafter.

“We divide here,” said Chopah, after a brief consultation. “The trail of the scalper is plain. Clearwater’s blood stained the leaves. The White Tiger rests in one of Gitche Gumee’s caves. We must hunt him there.”

A few moments later the band divided. Chopah and six braves threw themselves upon the fugitives’ trail, while another chief, with a like number of savages, followed the blood-marks that crimsoned the forest grass.

Soon the forest resumed its ghostly stillness, and for several hours it was not disturbed.

Then a convulsive movement of Doc Cromer’s arm snapped a twig, and the hand essayed to wipe the blood from his face.

And in the demi-gloom he raised his body on his elbow and looked about. His eyes fell upon the motionless forms of the four dead braves, and with great effort he crawled to each.

“Dead, by hokey!” he ejaculated, with eminent satisfaction. “Here’s the chap what I dropped afore the hatchet spoiled my face; but who’s gone an’ scalped ’em?”

In the pale moonlight the trader had discovered that the corpse was scalpless, and this excited his wonder.

Surely White Tiger and Silver Rifle did not defeat the savages after his fall, else he would not have been left there, even though he had been killed.

“I can’t fathom it,” he said, after a lengthy silence, “and I won’t try any more. Now, the next thing is to get out of this. Jehu, but I’m as weak as a weasel. I must have lost a barrel of blood. My face won’t bleed any more just now, for the blood is hard and shuts the gash.”

Then, with the help of a tree, the trader drew himself to his feet, and tried to walk away; but found himself too weak for the undertaking.

“I’ve got to crawl,” he reluctantly admitted, lowering himself to the ground again. “By heaven, if I ever git over this, somebody’ll hev to suffer.”

He robbed one of the dead Indians of his knife, and then crawled away.

It was a fearful strait to be in. At any moment his actions might betray him to vindictive enemies, and he could expect no mercy at their hands. He brooded over vengeance as he moved along through the forest, as he thought, toward the lake.

“This is slow work,” he said, a thousand times. “I hope I’ll be strong enough to walk like a man after a while. The lake can’t be far off now, for it is near daylight, and—heavens!”

Well might the trader utter the ejaculation and shrink back, for his hand had fallen upon a bare and icy arm!

He drew a long breath before he advanced, and then it was with a curse.

“’Tis the greaser I choked to death,” he said. “Here I’ve been crawling in the wrong direction all the time. What brought me back to this thing?” and, with a sigh of vexation, he threw himself beside the dead.

“It isn’t any harm to kill an Injun,” said the trader, with a smile, which looked ghastly on his bloody face; “but this fellow was sick, for he was as weak as the weasel’s kittens. I wonder if he hasn’t some pemmican about ’im. I’m hungry, an’ while I rest hyar, I might as well take a supper.”

So the Indian’s medicine-bag was drawn from beneath the body, and Doc Cromer’s hand disappeared among its contents.

“There’s not much hyar,” he said; “not an ounce of pemmican; but what’s this?”

Quickly he withdrew his hand, and bent forward to examine the object it clutched.

The prize glittered like gold in the rays of the moon, and all at once a strange cry pealed from the trader’s lips.

“Well, what’s goin’ to happen me next?” he exclaimed. “Hyar’s Silver Rifle’s ring—in the medicine bag of the greaser what I choked to death, when she war at my side! Say, Injun,” and he turned toward the corpse, “whar you run ’cross this? Blast yer ugly picture, ef you don’t tell I’ll knife you, I will, by hokey!”

He shook the body violently, and then laughed at his folly.

“Well, I’ve got the ring, anyhow,” he said, “and, by heavens! I’m goin’ to deliver it to the gal in person. I’m not goin’ to die hyar! no! Doc Cromer, suthin’ guided you to this spot—suthin’ we don’t know any thing about.”

He started at the sound of his own voice, so singularly harsh and strong, and rose to his feet without great effort.

“I’ll strike the lake trail this time,” he murmured. “If I kin but reach the cave, I’ll be strong in a little while.”

Then he moved off, but suddenly came to a halt.

“Hyar they come; them infernal Indian dogs!” he hissed, listening to the tramp of many feet, and the yells that resounded throughout the forest. “I thinned their ranks when I war trappin’; but since the boys are all dead, the dogs will increase. They’re half-starved, I kin tell by their yelps, and they’re comin’ d’rectly toward me!”

The trapper hugged a tree, and listened to the noise of the troop.

The animals, many of which were half-wolf, were snapping and snarling at each other, and ready to tear to pieces any animated object which obstructed their path. The Chippewa dogs, tired of gnawing bones around the lodges, often made incursions into the forest, where they sometimes met and gave battle to their brother—the wolf. More than one Indian had fallen a prey to the wild dogs, when returning from an unsuccessful foray, and of late the young braves had dispatched large numbers of the brutes, when they could do so without its coming to the knowledge of their several owners.

On came the half-starved dogs, and Doc Cromer held his breath.

“They haven’t tasted meat for days,” he said, “and, thank Heaven! they’re passin’ me to the right!”

His ejaculation of joy was quickly followed by an exclamation of terrible anxiety.

The dogs had scented him and had paused.

He dare not move; the slightest action would betray him to the beasts, and he seemed some dark excrescence in the body of the tree.

All at once the leader of the troop, a huge half-wolf dog, walked slowly toward him!

Cromer uttered an oath, and griped his knife firmer than ever.

But a prolonged and peculiar whistle brought the dog to a halt.

His master was calling him!

A dozen like whistles followed the first, and the trader beheld the famished canines stand irresolute.

Had the Indians discovered him, or were they young braves who wished to call the troop nearer, that they might pour a deadly volley into their ranks?

“Heaven keep them from me!” he cried; “but if—they’re comin’ fur me, by Jehu!”

The leader had turned to the trader again, for the calls had died away, and with the nerve characteristic of the trapper and fur-buyer of the lakes, he awaited the onset.

On one of the fingers of the left hand, thrown slightly forward as a shield, glittered Silver Rifle’s fateful ring, while below the tightly clenched members of the right, there was the soft gleaming of yet bloodless steel.

Suddenly, with a half wolfish howl, the big dog sprung forward, upward.

The next instant there was blood on Doc Cromer’s blade, and the mad beasts were leaping at him from all sides.