A TURNING OF TABLES.
To acquaint the reader with Artena’s sudden appearance before Cohoon’s would-be-torturers, we must needs return to the bank that overlooked the interior of the cave.
For many minutes after Donald McKay’s departure in search of the boat, which was intended to convey her from Jack’s stronghold, Artena kept her eye fixed upon the sleeping spies and their surroundings. She felt suspicious of Baltimore Bob, indeed, she had reached the conclusion that he had recognized the two men, despite their paint and Klamath garments, and she looked for some coming treachery on his part.
Therefore, so intent upon these thoughts was the Indian’s mind, that the footsteps that loosened a pebble and caused it to roll into the black water, did not disturb her in the least. True, the noise was scarcely distinguishable above the swash of the waves; but it was big with events.
A dark figure wearing a cavalry jacket and Indian leggings was crawling upon the watcher with the movements of the panther, and the look that shot from the dark eyes was indicative of the fiercest triumph and revenge, strangely commingled.
Once or twice the Indian—for an Indian the girls’ foe undoubtedly was—paused and listened, as if he knew that Donald McKay was not far off; but he never took his eyes from his prey.
Suddenly crouching very near the ground, imitating the movements of the panther in every particular, he sprung upon the watcher, who was secured before she could comprehend her situation.
One of the scarlet hands prevented her from crying aloud, and down the bank with his captive the savage hurried.
He knew his path in the gloom, and avoided the numerous crags that projected riverward as dexterously as though he could see like the owl. By and by he took his hand from Artena’s mouth, cautioning her at the same time not to utter a word, and at length executed a halt, in the midst of Stygian darkness.
He had bound the nether limbs of the Squaw Spy in the light of the fire beside which the spies slept, and he placed her on the ground, while he turned his attention to the kindling of a fire.
In this he succeeded, and the blaze told Artena that her captor was a gigantic young savage, named Hunter Phil.
She had known him for years; in truth, from girlhood—known him as a vindictive lover, who had persecuted her with his attentions without a moment’s cessation, when she was in his presence. But she had not, until that hour of capture, encountered him for some time, and had begun to hope that some Union bullet had terminated his existence.
“Artena with Phil once more,” said the Indian, turning from the fire and throwing himself before the girl, who sat on the stony floor of the little cavern. “Phil no let Jack catch her again, for he’d kill her for spying in his stony lodges for blue-coats.”
“Then, what are you going to do with me?” asked the girl, anxiously, but with great calmness.
“Phil going to leave Modocs,” was the reply. “Blue-coats whip ’em, by ’m by. Jack’s cause lost, and Phil want to save his neck, for big General hang Jack and his braves. So, Phil leave cave when night come again, and Artena go with him to Arrow-Head.”
“But blue-coat law take Phil there.”
“Then Phil go to Feather river. Won’t catch him there!”
“Ah! but they will,” said the girl, with a smile at the Indian’s fear of justice.
“Then Phil get in big ship, an’ go out on ocean. If blue-coats follow him there, then he go to—” he paused and looked up into Artena’s eyes—“to the devil!”
The girl laughed at the expression of triumph that sat enthroned upon the Indian’s face. He had solved the difficult problem of ultimate escape, and was proud thereof.
“Does Phil think that Jack would kill Artena?” asked the girl, quickly returning to seriousness.
The Indian nodded.
“Kill her in minute! Don’t he know that she Davis’ spy? Hasn’t Phil lain beside the big General’s tent and heard Artena tell him about Jack? And Baltimore Bob came right from the camp after hearing Artena and Kit talking to Davis, and told Jack that she was a traitress. Ah, Artena, Jack knows all at last. You go with Phil now, eh?”
The girl nodded, and almost beside himself with joy, the savage drew his knife and severed her bonds.
Then she continued to converse with her dusky lover, until, completely hoodwinked by her cunning words, he was thrown off his guard, and never dreamed of treachery.
Without resistance, she possessed herself of his tomahawk, talking the while of their future life among the Klamaths, and all at once the weapon shot up into space, and as quickly and irresistibly descended upon the unprotected head of the red-skin!
It took a terrible blow to fell the giant; but Artena’s arm was equal to the emergency, and with a groan, he sunk to the ground.
She did not wish to kill him, for to him, no doubt, she owed her life, and with throbless heart, she bent over the stricken lover, and felt his pulse. For a moment it beat to the ratio of one hundred beats per minute, and then they lessened until they ceased altogether.
Hunter Phil was dead!
Quite assured of this, the Squaw Spy rose to her feet, and once more possessed herself of her own weapons. Now she would return to the bank, where Donald, no doubt, waited for her, and wondered at her absence. She knew that Phil was not aware of the ranger’s presence: his words had told her this; and she was too far remote from the bank to hear the shots that broke the stillness there a while after her departure. Thoroughly acquainted with the intricacies of the Lava-Beds, Artena thought that she could return to the spot without difficulty, and left the dead lover’s cave on her mission.
But she missed the proper corridor, and followed one which led her to a contemplation of the scene which was transpiring in Jack’s cave—the arraignment of Cohoon as a spy.
She watched it from the shadow of a lava-crag, with an interest bordering on terror, and when the Modoc’s arm was lifted to take the Warm Springer’s life, by a well-directed pistol-shot she disarmed the executioner, and then fearlessly showed herself, as the reader has already witnessed.
Immediately after shooting the pistol from Jack’s hand, she flung her weapons into the deeper gloom, deeming it policy to deny the act, which was ascribed to McKay by the Indians.
What followed her surrender is described in chapter ten, so far as it goes, and now we resume the thrilling narrative.
Cohoon lay on the ground, like one dead; but he was still imbued with life.
The arrow had produced a senseless state, so nearly akin to death as to deceive the Indians, and they glared fiercely upon the youth whose empty bow told that he had sped the fatal arrow.
“Here, boy,” and the speaker, Captain Jack, turned upon the youth. “Here, I want you, I say.”
Several chiefs pushed the youth forward, and he soon found himself lifted from the ground by Mouseh’s strong arms.
“Curse your little heart!” cried the chief. “You’ve punished the man whom I alone had the right to punish. Now to the spirit-land I send you. Yon lava-wall will be reddened by your blood, and may your fate be a warning to future self-installed executioners.”
He raised the youth above his head, as he uttered the last sentence, and darted a quick look at Artena, who, with ready rifle, stood over her lover, her eyes fixed upon the youth, so speedily devoted to death.
A moment of breathless suspense followed, and then the Indian boy left the chief’s grasp.
But his body did not strike the stony wall.
No! it struck a wall of flesh and blood, and Artena and ’Reesa South were hurled ten feet backward by the strange weapon!
“Secure them!” cried Jack, pointing to the stricken girls with an air of triumph, and several braves snatched thongs from their girdles and sprung to the task.
The Indian’s invention had baffled his foes, and the hurling of the youth against them was an action unlooked-for by every occupant of the cave.
The force of the body was absolutely irresistible; it flew from Jack’s hands like a thunderbolt, and after prostrating the girls, it struck the foot of the wall beyond, and quivered there like a piece of raw liver.
Jack’s victory was greeted with wild shouts of approbation, and he stepped forward quietly and secured the Spencer which had fallen from Artena’s hands.
Then he stooped over Cohoon, and smiled faintly when he looked up at his braves again.
A moment later, the Warm Spring chief opened his eyes, and, with the assistance of his stern captor, rose to his feet.
His hands had been lashed to his side, but his nether limbs were free, and he looked around upon the scene.
Neither Artena nor ’Reesa had recovered from the attack. Side by side they lay, like corpses, in the light of the fire, and when the spy’s gaze fell upon them, he shot a look of vengeance at Jack.
“Dead?”
The question was quite natural, for the young red ranger could not see the girls’ bonds, which the position of their bodies hid.
“Dead are Artena and the white girl,” answered the Modoc, to see what effect such words would have upon the ranger, and also to torture his inmost soul.
A tinge of pain quivered Cohoon’s lips, and the lurid light of a storm flashed in his dark eyes. That light warned more than one Indian, and the clicking of rifle-locks again broke the silence.
“Who else, then?” demanded the ranger, and he moved forward an inch.
The lying answer accorded well with the torture which the chief’s first words had inflicted.
“This hand,” cried Jack, stretching forth his right hand. “It sent Cohoon’s traitress—”
The snapping of cords interrupted the sentence, and the next moment the spy was among his enemies! Jack saw the veins on his forehead swell to enormous size; but the storm burst before he could prepare to receive it.
The strength of a Sampson slept in the ranger’s muscles, and he leaped among the Modocs with a short, sharp cry, closely allied to the vengeful sound that often emerges from the panther’s throat.
Captain Jack received a blow from the Spencer, which the madman wrenched from his grip, and then the weapon was stained with other blood.
His sudden onslaught nonplused the Indians. They dared not shoot, for their own brethren were likely to receive the balls, and only those nearest Cohoon could get a sight of him.
He cleared a path for his daring feet.
Like Simon Kenton, among the savages of early Ohio, he fought his way to the river bank, and then disappeared!
But not uninjured!
His escape from death seemed miraculous. It was his sudden onslaught that saved him. It confused the savages, and almost in the twinkling of an eye he was gone.
They could swear that his trail was marked with his own blood, and when they returned to their chief, who was recovering from the spy’s attack, it was to tell him that his foe would never cross his path again.
This brave had sunk his knife into the scout’s side; that one had shot him in the back as he fell into the stream, and a third had crushed one shoulder with a clubbed carbine.
Not a savage could be found who had not inflicted some wound upon the brave ranger, and amid the bestowal of self-praise, Jack rose to his feet and pointed to the two captives still remaining in his hands.
“Scar-face,” he said, “take them to the little spring cave, and let the eyes of three of my best braves regard them until I command further.”
Scar-faced Charley sprung to his task, and with the assistance of four braves whom he selected from the band, the two helpless captives were borne from the cave.
The chieftain was not in the humor to carry out his plans of punishment at present. He pressed his hand to his head, but quickly removed it, and saw it covered with blood.
“Look!” he cried, putting forth the gory member. “Mouseh’s blood is flowing. Come, Modocs, swear that for every drop that falls from his head, a blue-coat shall die!”
Then the cave resounded with shouts of vengeance; and stepping toward the wall, with his own blood the murderer of Canby traced the outlines of a gallows on the gray stone.
Then he turned to his braves, but spoke not.
They read the significance of the horrid design, and swore, for the hundredth time, to die with rifles in their hands.
Some kept their oaths; but how Jack and others kept theirs, the reader of the Modoc war has seen.