CHAPTER VIII.
OFF FOR THE RESCUE.
The shot fired at Mark Morgan by the Girl Avenger did not prove fatal, as the reader has just seen by witnessing the scout’s capture by Joe Girty in the Ottawa village.
In his admirable disguise, the spy counterfeited the Indian to perfectness, and under the circumstances it is not at all surprising that the dreaded enemy of the whole red race should try to send him to “the valley of the shadow.” But a few moments before the boat and its occupant appeared in the almost fatal vicinity, Kenowatha and the young She-wolf emerged from the latter’s home among the rocks, and stood upon the limestone crags many feet above the stream.
Kenowatha was the first to see the boat, and when Nanette’s eyes fell upon it—when they encountered the spy whom she believed to be one of her sworn enemies, a whirlwind of passion shook her frame, and she snatched the White Fox’s rifle from his hands—hers having been left in the cave.
Before she sped the leaden bullet on its errand, Nanette recognized Effie St. Pierre and Major Runnion, both of whom she had seen beneath the very cottonwood where the reader has seen a startling drama enacted.
Almost instantly she arrived at these conclusions: that Mark Morgan was Wacomet the Ottawa, who, she knew, entertained a burning passion for the trader’s daughter orprotege, as she really was, for in his disguise the young spy certainly bore a striking resemblance, especially from the girl’s standpoint of observation, to the red-skinned lover; that, intent upon possessing the girl, who had gently yet firmly repelled his advances, Wacomet had journeyed to the trading-post, and had surprised Effie and her British lover under the cottonwood; that he had captured both, and was conveying them to some point up the stream, where he might hide them from their friends and his.
If such were the case, it had been policy for the young She-wolf to follow Wacomet, and by strategy wrest his prisoners from his red hands, and hideously adorn his brow with her crimson mark.
But Nanette Froisart could not repel the passion that took possession of her, and the rifle cracked.
When Effie St. Pierre shouted to her as she and Kenowatha descended the rocks, that her bleeding victim was no Indian—that she had dyed her hands in the blood of a friend, Nanette was horror-stricken, plunged into the stream, and arrested the crazy motions of the rudderless boat.
“What! not an Indian?” cried Nanette, looking up into Effie’s pale face.
“His skin is as fair as yours. He is Mark Morgan, one of Wayne’s spies.”
“Impossible!” parted the avenger’s lips.
“I speak the truth,” returned Effie. “See!” and she displayed white skin by washing the blood from her lover’s cheek.
A cry of astonishment simultaneously parted the two mute spectators’ lips.
“He is not dead!” suddenly cried Kenowatha, who had noted a twitching of the scout’s pale lips. “See! girl, your ball did not enter his head; it merely grazed it.”
The speaker caught up some water in his hand, and soon displayed the truth of his assertion.
A cry of joy welled from Effie’s heart, and she knelt over her lover, taking his hands.
Additional water sufficed to unclose Mark Morgan’s eyes, and presently he sat up in the boat.
“It was a close shave, girl,” he said, looking at the avenger, whom he now encountered for the first time. “I owe the preservation of my life to the fact that you fired downward; had I been on a level with you there were no need of my talking now.”
“No,” answered the She-wolf. “I would have sworn that you were an Indian—Wacomet.”
“You are not the first person who has recognized Wacomet in me within the last twenty-four hours, and I had better counterfeit another red gentleman than he. But, girl, we must seek shelter; there may be sharp eyes nearing us, and then here’s one who needs rest, to live.”
As he finished, the spy glanced at the Briton, and a minute later the boat was moored to the bank.
It was no child’s play for the quartette, though Effie could lend but little assistance, to bear the helpless major up the loose and ragged rocks to Nanette’s cave home. But the Herculean task was bravely undertaken and accomplished, and the wounded man found himself almost buried in a pile of soft skins, that seemed to him a bed of down.
Then his wounds were more carefully examined, and found to be of a less serious nature than was at first supposed; but still he was far from safety. The irritation caused by the journey up the rocks might speedily prove fatal, and terminate a life not without guilt.
The day passed quickly to the inmates of the cave, and when night came again, Mark Morgan announced his intention of carrying out the wishes of his commander before dawn—viz: to enter the Indian village and ascertain the numbers, etc., of the red-men and their white allies who were to meet Wayne on the banks of the Maumee. He knew almost to a certainty that the conflict would take place near Nanette’s cave, and he resolved to leave Effie under the protection of the young avenger, until he returned from the American forces. She would be safer there than while being conducted through forests, swarming with red and white foes.
The young spy now doffed the dress peculiar to Wacomet, which he had worn, and adopted that of an Ottawa sub-chief, in which he would be more likely to carry out his plans satisfactorily, both to himself and Mad Anthony.
Nanette resolved to accompany the scout to the suburbs of the “town,” and there await his return, leaving Effie and the Briton under the watchful eye of Kenowatha.
While the boy—for boy Kenowatha may well be called—inwardly chafed at being left to play an inactive part in the red drama that was being enacted, he submitted with good grace when Nanette told him that soon he should tread with her the path of vengeance, from dawn till dawn.
Disguised as an Indian girl, yet bearing her rifle, the young She-wolf—as the Girl Avenger had been styled by the savages—left the cave with the scout, and, after a rapid walk of two hours, parted with him on the suburbs of the Ottawa village, he promising to return against midnight.
The girl had chosen a position a short distance from the river, and within thirty feet of Turkey-foot’s lodge, the entrance of which she faced.
The curtains of skins that formed the door were raised, thus exposing the well-lighted interior of the spacious wigwam to the girl. Presently six dark figures, gliding as noiseless as serpents over the meadow, passed Nanette and entered the lodge.
After awhile a solitary figure, which she recognized as Joe Girty, approached and walked among the warriors. Then followed the drawing of the totems, and when the face of Stomah, the red artist, was revealed to the avenger, her rifle flew to her shoulder, and, before the gust of revenge left the girl, Stomah was ebbing out his life-blood, as the reader has seen, over the totems. Stomah had paid the penalty he had incurred upon a certain stormy November night, years prior to the inauguration of our romance.
After the fatal shot, the avenger crept nearer the bank of the stream and noiselessly reloaded her rifle. Then gliding back she listened to the oath of the Death League, and saw its members leave the Ottawa’s lodge.
She knew that she would not be followed that night, for Turkey-foot had said as much, and suddenly, while she waited for the spy’s return, Joe Girty’s whoop, indicating an important capture, rent the air.
The cry seemed to have alarmed the entire village, for the lodges near her poured forth their human contents, that hurried toward the center of the “town.” With almost throbless heart, and rifle at half-cock, the disguised avenger darted forward with natural caution, and presently her worst fears were confirmed.
A multitude of torches illuminated a large space, that might be termed a well-defined square, and around one man, secure in the grip of the renegade, howled fully four hundred mad representatives of six red nations.
Eager to witness what would follow, and confident of the trustworthiness of her disguise, the Indian’s enemy placed her gun against a wigwam and boldly joined the assembly.
In a few words Girty described the spy’s capture, and calmly Mark Morgan awaited his doom.
“To the stake at once!” cried the loud voice of Wacomet, who saw in the young scout the accepted lover of the girl he admired. “At once to the tree! and we’ll send the white dog’s ashes to his master.”
This was greeted with shouts of approval, which still echoed down the Maumee, when a pale-face sprung from the crowd and paused before the prisoner.
It was Mitre St. Pierre!
“Mark Morgan,” he shrieked, with flashing eyes, as his bony fingers closed on the spy’s throat, “where’s my gal? Tell me where she is this minute, or, by the God that created us I’ll scatter your brains over these braves.”
“Ye’ve axed the chap a question which he can’t answer while you continner to choke his wind off,” said Girty, clutching the exasperated trader’s arm. “Take yer fingers away, an’ we’ll see what he sez to yer question.”
Sullenly the Frenchman complied, for he saw Girty’s hand touch the ornamented hilt of a huge Spanish dirk that glistened in his girdle.
“Now answer my question, white dog!” he cried, stepping a pace from the prisoner, who eyed him with something of a look of triumph mingled with defiance. “Where’s Effie—my gal!”
“Where I left her, Mitre St. Pierre!”
The scout’s answer drove a yell of rage from the trader’s throat; he shot forward, and before Joe Girty could interpose his hand, again griped Mark’s throat, and a pistol-barrel glittered in the starlight.
There was murder in St. Pierre’s eyes.
To prevent the deed, several braves and Simon Girty darted forward; but their assistance was not needed for the White Ottawa had knocked the weapon from the Frenchman’s hand, and hurled its frenzied owner to the earth. And when he rose again, looks told him that his personal safety depended on quietude.
“Now what shall we do with the spy?” demanded Joe Girty.
A majority of the Indians cried aloud for immediate execution by the terrible ordeal of fire; but the whites, exclusive of Joe Girty, overruled them.
“Wait until the braves return with May and M’Lellan,” said Captain McKee, addressing the savages. “Our men are sure to catch the two spies who were prowling around Fort Miami, and when they return we’ll burn all together.”
This speech was seconded by Simon Girty, Elliott and others, and Nanette saw the spy dragged to a strong log cabin in the center of the village, there to await the capture of May and M’Lellan, two brother scouts, upon whose trail a band of savages had been for several days, and whose capture, by the sanguine enemies of Wayne, was regarded certain.
The crowd that accompanied Mark Morgan to the prison was immense, and the cries that soared starward proclaimed the true wishes of the Indians.
“I’ll wring her whereabouts from you yet,” Nanette heard Mitre St. Pierre howl, “and if you give me any more such answers as you did awhile ago I’ll tear your heart out and cram it into your mouth.”
The spy said nothing, but smiled faintly at the Frenchman, which exasperated him the more.
All at once Nanette began to force herself through the crowd toward the scout, and at last she found herself at his side.
“To-morrow night!” she whispered in his ears, while the crowd greeted an outburst of anger from St. Pierre with hideous cries. “We’ll come for you then—Kenowatha and I. They won’t catch May and M’Lellan.”
He did not betray the avenger’s presence, and when the door closed on him, and a triple guard was thrown around the cabin, the young She-wolf hurried toward her home in the rocks, which she reached an hour or more before dawn.
After telling Effie that her lover was on his journey to Wayne—for she did not wish to inform the girl of the scout’s peril, she drew Kenowatha aside and communicated the true state of affairs.
“I told him that we would come to-morrow night,” she said.
“We will come!” cried Kenowatha, eager for action. “We will enter the village, and if any red-men cross our paths we’ll mark them to the terror of their brothers. Kai Ja Manitou shall look down upon a new mark—soon to be as terrible as the bloody half-moon. I have chosen my mark, Nanette—a cross!”
“Oh, may the cross become as terrible as the crescent!” said Nanette.
“It shall! it shall!” and Kenowatha’s hand stole to Nanette’s, and then they returned to the fire.
When another day had faded, the two avengers glided from the cavern, by an entrance seldom used, and started toward the Ottawa village—intent upon the rescue of Wayne’s intrepid spy.
Effie St. Pierre, than whom woman never possessed a braver heart, was content to remain with the wounded major until their return.
The two avengers fell confident of crowning their extremely hazardous enterprise with success; but could they have foreseen the events which transpired in the cave before dawn, it is doubtful whether they would have went forth.