CHAPTER VII.
THE RED-SKIN’S OATH.
Maddened beyond description, because his call was unanswered by hisprotege, Joe Girty turned to the Indians, and allowed a volley of oaths to escape his lips. Finding his red allies mute, or conversing with each other in unintelligible whispers, he stepped from Turkey-foot’s side to the little group of renegades consisting of his brother Simon, Capt. McKee, Elliott, and several others.
“Joe, it’s as plain as day to me,” said Simon Girty.
“Then out with it.”
“The girl an’ Kenowatha, as you call your pale spawn, are together.”
The next moment the white Ottawa had bounded into the cabin, tenanted by the dead.
Turkey-foot followed him.
The torches of the twain revealed the ghastly sight again, and Girty suddenly turned to the chief.
“Simon must have told the truth,” he said; “the white spawn’s gun is gone.”
“And he is with the young She-wolf,” hissed Turkey-foot. “Now shall he become the red-man’s enemy. The white Ottawa will help us hunt him?”
“Yes, yes,” cried Joe Girty, grasping the outstretched hand of the chief; but a moment later his cheek blanched to an icy pallor, in the glare of the torches.
He thought of the deadly bullets that sped from the She-wolf’s rifle.
Turkey-foot divined the meaning of the renegade’s terror.
“Men who fear squaws should wear long hair and tear their sinews from their arms,” hissed the Indian, in a tone of cutting derision. “To-morrow night a league that shall hunt Kenowatha and the She-wolf to the cold waters of the dark river, forms in Turkey-foot’s lodge. Turkey-foot had a boy once—a gracious son; but the mark of the She-wolf’s teeth is on his skull. Until this moment, warriors have refused to take the oath a childless father would impose upon them. Now the time has come. Turkey-foot met the young chiefs last night. Leather-lips, Wacomet, Segastaro, and others yearn for the red oath. Ah, the Manitou’s cheeks will become as white as my brother’s, when the red-man’s words enter his soul. If the white Ottawa can chase the snow from his cheeks, let him enter Turkey-foot’s wigwam when another sleep shuts the eyes of the women.”
“I will be there,” cried the renegade, with a mighty effort, appearing calm. “These fingers itch to clutch the White Fox’s throat, my knife shall blush beneath his heart’s blood. You may have the She-wolf;—she’s killed enough Ottawas to entitle her to a thousand deaths; but I want the boy—recollect that.”
“If the white Ottawa joins us he shall have the boy,” said Turkey-foot. “Wewant the She-wolf’s heart.”
Girty’s eagerness to step upon the trail of the youth whom he now hated with all his heart, made him impatient.
“Why not to-night?” he said.
“The white Indian can step before the young She-wolf’s bullet,” said the chief, sarcastically, as he stepped aside and waved his red hand toward the door. “But Turkey-foot waits until the oath has been taken.”
The renegade remained in his tracks.
As well might he discharge his pistol against his own temple, as to attempt to hunt down Kenowatha and his avenging companion alone. While Turkey-foot spoke, his mind flitted back upon the history of the past, covered by one short year. He could count twenty chiefs whose brows had worn the fatal crescent of the She-wolf. Before the council fires impetuous chiefs had sworn to hunt the Girl Avenger down; for that purpose had they left the village, and awhile later a hunter would find them in the forest, scalped and wearing the red crescent. Well might Joe Girty tremble, for Nanette’s rifle had once been aimed at him, and nothing but an accident—the stumbling over a hidden root—had saved his life.
“In union there is strength.”
Thus the renegade thought, and he felt that success would attend the league about to be formed.
Turkey-foot laughed when he saw the renegade shrink from the task of hunting the young She-wolf alone.
“Come!” said the Indian, stepping toward the door, “the braves are returning to the council-house. Do not forget Turkey-foot’s lodge—when sleep shuts the women’s eyes.”
“I will not forget,” said the renegade, and the following moment, the twain were returning to the council-house.
The braves were not surprised at the inaction that followed the escape of the Terror of the Maumee. By many she was believed to be in league with Watchemenetoc, the Evil Spirit, and the bravest shuddered when they thought of following her into the gloomy recesses of the forests.
Presently, as though it had suffered no interruption, the council was resumed, and again the bitterest of Indian invectives were showered upon Wayne, who then watched the building of Fort Defiance.
Joe Girty joined his brother renegades upon the mats within the circle, and with thoughts far from the tempest that was soon to devastate the lovely Maumee valley, he heard the outbursts of Indian eloquence, that frightened the birds from their frail homes, upon the wooded banks of the shimmering stream.
He owned one desire now, and that was to drive a knife into the heart of the boy whom he had snatched from an Indian’s tomahawk, and created a red chief.
The council at last broke up amid the infernal yells that followed Blue Jacket’s peroration.
The objects of the British and renegades were accomplished. All overtures of peace on the part of the Americans were useless now; every warrior of the allied nations had sworn to resist Wayne to the last, and die upon the hunting-grounds of their fathers.
“Remember!” whispered Turkey-foot, in Girty’s ear, as he glided past the renegade. “The bloody words when another sleep comes. The She-wolf must die before we meet the mad white chief.”
“Now or never!” was the response, for Girty knew the man who was leading his soldiers from the southern posts.
The Indians now had no Harmar or St. Clair to deal with!
Nothing of note connected with our romance occurred in the Ottawa village during the day that followed, and when, to all appearance, the red people slept again, the renegade stole from his cabin and walked toward the river.
Now and then he passed a wigwam from which voices reached his ears, and once or twice, through curiosity, for his business was not urgent, he paused and caught the words of the red conversationalist. Everywhere but one subject was the topic under discussion—the approach of Wayne, and the probable issue of the campaign.
Beside one lodge he paused longer than usual, and would allow himself no rest until he had obtained a view of the talkers.
One was Vulture-eyes, an experienced Wea chief, and a representative from his nation to the general council; his companion, an agile youth, clad in the habiliments of an Ottawa sub-chief. The latter was a stranger to Girty, who knew every man in the Ottawa nation, could distinguish each in the dark by his voice, and it is not surprising that the young Ottawa fell under the renegade’s suspicion. Vulture-eyes, whose orbs danced under the influence of the pale-face’s fire-water, was exceedingly communicative, and Joe Girty listened with rising indignation, while he divulged the number of the allied warriors, the plans and dispositions of the forces to the suspected one, who, according to his narrative, had returned from a tedious scout too late to participate in the council.
The longer the renegade looked at the young Ottawa, the deeper grew his suspicions, until they were reduced almost to a certainty. And when he glided from his hiding-place, he felt that a white skin lay beneath the war-paint that glistened on the body of Vulture-eyes’ companion.
He did not walk far, however, until he halted before a white birchen lodge, and at the sound of his voice two young braves awakened from light slumber.
Their features proclaimed them what they really were—twins.
“Do the Twin Panthers know where Vulture-eyes, the Wea, rests?”
“We do.”
“Watch the Wea and the one with whom he talks,” responded the renegade, “and when that one leaves the Wea’s lodge, seize him without noise, bind him, bring him to the Panther’s nest, an’ watch him until I return. On no account make any noise that will rouse the warriors, for, in the trouble, the one who talks with Vulture-eyes may escape. To the White Whirlwind[3]he is worth a thousand rifles.”
The brothers’ eyes flashed at the last sentence, and, true to the Indian character, without a question, they glided away in the starlight.
A low and triumphant chuckle came from the renegade’s heart as he turned to his mission again, and his lips parted in low speech:
“To-morrow Mad Anthony will have one thunderbolt less, fur ef I hevn’t seen through that young fellar’s paint an’ stuff, then ye kin put Joe Girty down fur an old blind fool. Yes’r, thet chap what’s tappin’ Vulture Eyes, the drunken old Wea, ar’ one ov Wayne’s spies, an’ ef his friends ’u’d call ’im Mark Morgan he’d answer to the handle. Ha! ha! ha! a fox can enter the roost a thousand times without gettin’ his foot in the trap; but at last his time comes.”
Presently the renegade reached the end of his nocturnal journey—Turkey-foot’s lodge, the nearest construction of the kind to the river.
He heard a confused murmur of voices before he entered the structure, and when he crossed the threshold, he found that he was a trifle late. His appearance was greeted with grunts of satisfaction, not unmingled with surprise, and Girty was not prepared to recognize the formidable chiefs whom Turkey-foot had seemingly enlisted in his revengeful enterprise.
Foremost among them towered the giant leader of the league, Turkey-foot, who now was animated with a truly diabolical project to avenge the death of his son. Then came Leather-lips, the famous sorcerer of the Wyandots, than whom a more cunning and revengeful Indian never played the prophet; then Wacomet, Effie St. Pierre’s red lover, tall and, for an Indian, extremely handsome, somewhat of a dandy among the belles and beaux of the forest, but a tornado in battle, a lynx on the trail.
Besides the three already described, as many more noted red-men completed the league, into which but a single pale-face was to be admitted.
When Girty entered Turkey-foot’s lodge, he found its tenants grouped around a large, flat stone, placed on the earth in the lodge’s center. On this stone lay a piece of tanned deerskin, upon which Stomah, one of the league, and quite an untaught artist, was tracing the totems of the chiefs. In silence the totems were completed, and the voice of Turkey-foot greeted the assembly.
“We are here to take the oath that makes the Manitou shudder. Let those who will not swear walk into the light of his fires.”
Not a figure stirred.
“By his totem, and the heart of the Manitou, shall each swear, and beneath our totems shall we write our marks in the warm blood that gushes from our hearts!”
At the significance of the terrible vow, every heart grew chill, and presently Turkey-foot drew his scalping-knife from its highly-ornamented sheath.
“Turkey-foot will swear first,” he said, bringing the point of the knife to his bare red breast; “and when we all have sworn, then shall each drink the blood that shoots from the wounds we make, even as we shall swallow the heart-gore of the young She-wolf.”
A moment later, the knife glided through the skin directly over the chief’s heart, and the smoking blood gushed forth like a tiny rivulet, suddenly released from the power of a dam.
“Now!”
The Indian bathed his hand in the red tide, and threw the gory member toward heaven.
“Oh! Kai Ja Manitou—”
The crack of a rifle out in the starlight, unaccompanied by the wolfish warning that had preceded so many shots fatal to the red-men of northern Ohio, interrupted the oath, and Stomah, the red artist, with a gurgle and a groan, sunk to the earth; and his blood gushed over the totems—the last work of his hands.
The fatal shot seemed to glue the Death League to the bloody spot, and each found himself staring at the gory form, and almost obliterated totems!
The slayer, whom prompt action might have thrown into their hands, was flying to her rocky fastness. For all recognized the crack of the death-dealing rifle, and knew that already the young She-wolf was upon the track of the Death League.
Turkey-foot was the first to speak. Though horror-stricken at Stomah’s sudden taking off, he was not terrified. Instead of fear, unwonted bravery and revenge were written upon every lineament of his swarthy face.
His voice roused his companions from their horror.
“Another shall fill his place!” he said, calmly, pointing to the stricken chief. “So fast as one falls beneath the She-wolf’s rifle—if others do fall—his place shall be filled. The League shall always contain seven avengers.”
A shout greeted this brief speech, and stooping over Stomah Turkey-foot made an incision over the pulseless heart large enough to admit the hand of a man.
“Here’s blood enough for oaths that will outnumber the Great Spirit’s fires,” he cried, thrusting his right hand into the wound, and bathing it in the gore that surrounded the dead chief’s heart.
“Follow Turkey-foot!” he cried, withdrawing his hand, and sweeping the circle with the bloody member.
The command was obeyed. Joe Girty’s hand, with human blood, was made as red as those of the Indians, and then, with the gory members raised to heaven, while the red current trickled down their arms, they swore to bathe their hands in and drink the heart’s-blood of Nanette Froisart, the Beautiful Terror of the Maumee, and Kenowatha. Joe Girty swore more particularly regarding the latter.
It was, in every sense of the word, a terrible oath!
“We will not follow her just now,” said Turkey-foot. “She is far away. But we know where her den is—along the stream with high walls. We will track the young She-wolf there, and then—doing what no brave until this hour daredthinkof—we’ll enter her den, and drink her blood. And we’ll meet the White Whirlwind with her yellow scalp-locks in our belt.”
This determination met with shouts of approval, and a few minutes later the members of the League separated.
No turmoil following the death-shot by Indians without Turkey-foot’s lodge, it passed unnoticed.
Joe Girty hurried toward the lodge of the Twin Panthers.
It was empty!
“The spy is determined to pump Vulture-eyes dry,” he murmured, turning on his heel; “I’ll help them catch ’im.”
A few moments later, he saw in the bright starlight, one Indian struggling with two others, before Vulture-eyes’ lodge.
He bounded forward, with a glittering blade in his blood-stained hand.
As he reached the struggling trio, he heard the dull thud of a knife against a bone, and one of the three staggered back with a half-smothered groan.
Then the slayer hurled his other antagonist from him and darted away.
But the renegade’s hand shot forward like a butcher’s sledge, and the victim staggered and fell to the earth.
“’Tis lucky I war hyar,” said Girty, in his rough voice, as he threw himself upon the stricken one. “I guess I war not mistaken; but I’ll see.”
With spittle he rubbed some paint from his prisoner’s face, and the stars showed him a white skin.
“I war right!” he ejaculated, rising and uttering a peculiar whoop. “Wayne’ll hear what you pumped out o’ old Vulture-eyes, Mark Morgan. Never!”
[3]A name bestowed by the savages upon Wayne.
[3]A name bestowed by the savages upon Wayne.