CHAPTER V.
ONE OF MAD ANTHONY’S SPIES.
Mitre St. Pierre reached the shade of the cottonwood in time to hear the story of the tragedy at the fort from Major Runnion’s lips.
The old man was thunder-struck.
During the narration of the bloody deed he narrowly noted the manner of the speaker, clearly perceived in the bright moonlight, and he felt that the officer was grossly misrepresenting the affair. If he struck Firman Campbell, as he said, in self-defense, why should he fear the trial that was approaching? Ah! the old man feared it was an unprovoked murder, and, as the officer proceeded, the trader cocked his rifle as though he had divined the finale of the moonlight meeting.
Now, for the first time, he knew that Effie did not love the Briton, and then it rushed upon his mind that she had not forgotten one whom he had driven from his Post, telling him to remain away upon the pain of death.
Almost with bated breath, he watched the twain under the tree, and when Effie flashed the pistol into the major’s face, an inaudible ejaculation of admiration welled from his heart.
“Shoot the white dog, Effie!” he murmured, now thoroughly disgusted at the conduct of one whom he had long respected. “Shoot him down, an’ I’ll carry him back to the fort an’ say: ‘Hyar’s the dog that slew the lamb.’ What!” when the weapon was knocked from Effie’s hand. “This’ll never do. I’ve a say in this muss, Ru’ Runnion, an’ hyar it goes.”
The infuriated major had seized the young girl in his arms, and was hissing his devilish intentions in her ears, when the trader’s gun struck his shoulder, and sent forth the ball with a result already witnessed by the reader.
Mitre St. Pierre had started from his concealment with a cry of horror, for he thought the bullet had accomplished a double work of death, when he saw a dark form drop from the branches of the cottonwood.
Mechanically he executed an abrupt halt, and crouched in the tall grass unperceived by the new-comer.
The Indian—for such the figure that dropped from the tree proclaimed itself—alighted beside the motionless form of Effie St. Pierre, which he quickly held in his arms, and was gazing down into her white face, with eyes aflame with triumph.
“It’s Wacomet!” ejaculated Mitre, springing up from the grass, and bounding to the side of the brave.
“Chief—”
The trader’s touch sent an electric thrill to the Indian’s heart, and the brawny fellow, still holding Effie from the earth, turned upon him with an exclamation of astonishment.
St. Pierre held a clubbed rifle over his feather-protected head.
“Wacomet!”
“Mitre St. Pierre!”
The trader started back at the sound of that voice, and a light laugh broke from the speaker’s lips.
“Ha! you thought me Wacomet,” he continued, in unbroken English. “Well, perhaps my dress does make me resemble that treacherous red-skin. I never thought of that when I painted up, and it’s not too late to mend. You know it wouldn’t do to have two Wacomets in the tribe at once.”
Mitre St. Pierre was silent; but the hate of a lifetime flashed from his dark eyes, and his frame shook with the passion of anger.
“I’m the last man you expected to meet to-night,” continued the disguised white, calmly glancing down upon Effie’s face, with a mingled expression of love and pity. “I was an unwilling spectator to the meeting but lately concluded. I watched him narrowly, and, sir, before he should have harmed this fair girl, I would have sent a bullet to his brain.”
In the silence that followed, the French trader found his tongue.
“Yes, you are the last devil I expected to see to-night,” he hissed, taking a step forward; “and the sooner you leave this spot the better it will be for you, Mark Morgan. Here! give me the girl—my child—and seek your mad—your crazy General!”
“I am the disposer in this instance, St. Pierre,” said the scout, with unruffled temper; “and I might as well tell you first as last that, when I leave this spot, the girl, Effie, goes along. I was following my legitimate business when I came here, and, sir, your arm, clothed as I know it to be with bone and sinew, is not strong enough to hinder my departure with whatever I choose to take away.”
A bitter oath parted St. Pierre’s lips.
“Mark Morgan—Wayne’s accursed spy,” he hissed, “not two months since I drove you from my Post, and warned you, for your own sake, to stay away. You have disregarded that warning; now I should inflict the penalty.”
The ranger laughed, and with uplifted rifle the Frenchman darted forward.
Suddenly, but with gentleness, the scout permitted Effie to slide from his grasp, and St. Pierre’s rifle met a tomahawk in mid-air.
The next moment, the weapon was wrenched from his grasp; he saw it describe a parabola over his head, and a dull plash told him that it had sunk in the waters of the Maumee.
While his hand, shaking with the rage that filled his heart, glided to his tomahawk, his eyes looked into the muzzle of a pistol, uncomfortably near his forehead.
“I do not mean to kill you, Mitre St. Pierre,” said the spy; “but when you have listened to me, you will be at liberty to return to your Post.”
The trader said nothing, but continued to glare upon the young vanquisher with the ferocity of a tiger.
“It is useless to tell you that I love yourprotege,” began the young man, “though perhaps the information that her hand has been promised me may be new to you.”
An oath declared that the information was new to St. Pierre.
“Ere this, Wayne has marched from Greenville, to punish the red dwellers in these forests, and perhaps their white aiders and abettors. Sir, unless you change your tactics, the simoom of vengeance that is to sweep these parts will not leave a vestige of your Post. I’m speaking for your own good now. You have furnished the Indians with munitions of war to fight us, and, unless you soon swear fealty to Wayne, I say you’ll reap the harvest of justice. It is for the safety of the girl that I remove her from you to-night.”
“Safety!” sneered St. Pierre, pointing toward the British fort. “Those walls are strong, and then who seeksher?Heis dead?”
“Yes; undoubtedly your bullet finished him,” responded the young spy, glancing at the river; “but Effie has another lover—one who has sworn in secret and before his sub-chiefs to possess her. To-night he stands before the assembled tribes, spitting his venom at Wayne; to-morrow night he may burst in your doors and bear away, over your corpse, perhaps, the prize he covets.”
A sneer escaped St. Pierre’s lips.
“Ah! you may sneer when he is far away. You know him not as I do.Ihave heard him swear—in spite of the friendship his people bear you—to possess this fair girl—the woman whom I love—whom you have raised from childhood. This woman goes with me.”
“Where would you take her?”
“To Greenville.”
“Through the woods would you guide her alone?”
“Yes.”
“The route is a death-trail now!”
“I have accomplished the journey already,” replied Mark Morgan; “I know every dangerous spot betwixt this place and Greenville, and when Mad Anthony has chastised the Indians, I will bring the girl back.”
“Why would the wolf return the lamb to the fold?”
“Perhaps she would want to see you, and have the ceremony performed at the Post, associated with many sweet memories, to her.”
“Oh, if I had the weapons, Mark Morgan!” hissed St. Pierre, his hand moving mechanically toward his knife. “Oh, if I had the weapons, I’d stretch you dead upon this sod, and then I’d toss you to the fishes that swim in yonder stream. You have the advantage now; but you will not keep it long. You’ve made a devil out of me, Mark Morgan—the bitterest enemy the Americans can own. I return to my Post, seize my arms and join the allied tribes. In days long gone, I trod the war-path with Turkey-foot, Leather-lips, and such chiefs. I have not forgotten the lessons learned from them. This old frame still possesses the elasticity of youth; these eyes have not lost their penetrating powers; this mind still owns the subtlety that baffled the king of France, and when I bring all my powers to bear against you, sir spying dog, you have the same chances for escape that a wood-tick has under the grinding heel of an Indian.
“We’ll meet again,” St. Pierre continued, before the spy could utter a word, “and that girl,” and he pointed to Effie, who had recovered and was clinging to her lover’s arm, “and that girl,” he repeated, “shall listen to the groans I shall wring from your heart, powerless to help you. I shall hunt you with a vindictiveness to which the work of the bitterest vendetta of the Old World can not be compared. Mark my words, Mark Morgan; take the girl and go.”
As Mitre St. Pierre finished he stepped aside and waved his hand toward the slumbering river.
“Come, Effie,” said the spy, taking the young girl’s hand. “If it needed but an effort for your preservation to transform that man into a fiend, then it were best that his roof shelters you no longer.”
St. Pierre scowled at this, and as the spy darted past with his pale flower, the sound of quick footsteps fell upon his ears.
“Mark, listen,” whispered Effie.
“I hear them, girl,” he said, without pausing. “They are British soldiers who have discovered the major’s escape. They must not find me.”
He sprung to the water’s edge, where he suddenly paused, and, with a startling exclamation, gazed bewilderingly around.
“Where’s my boat?”
The interrogative bubbled unsummoned to his lips.
His canoe was gone—gone from the tufts of grass to which he had securely moored it!
In his dilemma the spy turned toward the cottonwood.
He saw several British soldiers and Indians gain St. Pierre’s side.
“There! there!” cried the trader, excitedly, pointing to the twain relieved against the silvery surface of the Maumee. “See! see! Mark Morgan, Wayne’s accursed spy!”
With hideous yells, the Indians espied the brave scout, and darted forward.
A pistol flashed from Morgan’s girdle, and before the foremost savage could throw himself to the earth, he sprung into the air with a bullet in his heart.
The following moment the scout sprung from the bank, and with Effie at his side was swimming toward the conical island covered with young cottonwood and poplar that lay a short distance below in mid-stream.
“Don’t shoot!” shouted the trader, as his tomahawk knocked several directed guns from the Indians’ hands. “You might hit the girl, an’ she’s mine. He will land on the Cone, and there, as certain as death! we’ll bag our game.”
The braves set up a shout at this, and the party on shore watched the twain in the water.
The “Cone,” as the island was called, lay a short distance below the foot of the rapids, and in comparatively placid water. The scout had often visited it, and made himself acquainted with every foot of ground it contained. Its area embraced but eight acres, one-fourth of which composed a hollow, often irrigated by the Maumee.
At length Morgan’s feet touched the bottom of the stream, and, holding Effie above the water, he waded to the Cone.
“Safe!” ejaculated the girl, as she looked up into the eyes of her lover.
“Not yet, Effie—look yonder!” and the spy’s finger directed her to an unwelcome sight up the river.
The Indians were springing into the water, and swimming toward the island!
Effie turned to Mark with pallid cheek.
“I left my rifle here,” he said, “and with it we’ll keep the red-skins from landing.”
It was evident that his last words were uttered to reassure the girl, when he believed the odds terribly against him.
He led her from the bank, and from the hollow of a decayed log drew a long-barreled rifle.
Bidding Effie remain in the shadow of some poplars, the spy stepped toward the water with ready weapon.
A second later a hand touched his arm.
“Ef—”
“Hist!” admonished the girl, with finger on lip.
“What?” he ventured to whisper.
“Some one’s down in the hollow, Mark. I just heard a human voice. My God! can it be Indians?”
Mark Morgan uttered an ejaculation of horror. Were savages on the island, and others swiftly approaching?
It was a terrible moment!