DISCOVERED.
Had Kit South harbored one calm thought just before leaping down among the Modocs, he would have remained with Cohoon.
Certainly it was a jump into the jaws of death, and no doubt he realized this as he faced the Indians, with leveled pistol, and dared them to advance.
Once or twice he glanced hurriedly upward, as if invoking assistance from Cohoon; but the Warm Spring Indian did not show himself, and Kit began to curse him for his cowardice.
“I’ve got ’Reesa, and I’m going to keep her,” he shouted, at the barbarians, “and, more’n that, I want out o’ this place. Break ranks there, and let me through. Captain Jack, I cover your heart.”
The Modoc chief upon recovering from the blow which the scout delivered when he tore his daughter from his arm, bounded to his red brethren, and was among the foremost who faced the backwoods hero. Beyond the ranks of the savages stretched a dark corridor, which eventually, as Kit well knew, led to the top of the Lava-Beds. He had hunted the bear among these basaltic rocks, until he gained the sobriquet of Lava-Bed Kit.
“I’ll end the Modoc war in just one minute,” he continued, with stern resolution, still keeping his eye fastened upon the redoubtable Jack. “I mean business now. Let me pass your greasers.”
Without a word, Mouseh stepped aside, and waved his hand to his braves as he executed the action.
Just then a low rumbling noise fell upon the ears of all, and a minute later an explosion followed.
The chiefs looked into each others’ faces.
Gillem’s mortars were shelling the Lava-Beds!
“Go, white scout,” said Jack, eager to rid himself of the threatening pistol, and as eager to vacate the cave which might soon become untenable for them. “Take your pale girl; Mouseh did not intend to hurt her. He was just going to carry her away from the bloody work of the Modoc knife.”
Obedient to their chief’s command the Indians stepped aside, leaving an unobstructed path to the corridor.
Kit, with his precious burden, stepped forward.
He glanced pityingly at Evan Harris and Artena; but felt that he could not aid them.
He could save his daughter only, and she was dearer than all the world to him now—for he had no one else to love since the fiends had butchered his wife.
Despite the expression of pity, something very like a smile of triumph lurked about his lips, and he walked erect, keeping his revolver leveled at the breast of the Modoc rebel, who returned his look with silent promises of future vengeance.
Explosion followed explosion in rapid succession, and the scout accelerated his movements, for he feared that a shell might accidentally find its way into the cave, and work destruction among its inmates.
He faced the savages when he reached the end of the line, and began to “back” toward the corridor.
At the moment when the daring scout was about to cross the threshold of the passage, a half-hissing, half-grating sound startled every one, and the next second a shell rolled into the cavern! A cry of horror burst simultaneously from a dozen throats, as several Indians sprung forward and seized the deadly missile.
A moment’s scramble for the shell followed, when the most stalwart of the trio held it aloft, and began to strike it with his hatchet.
Kit seemed rooted to the spot; but only for a moment.
He sprung back into the corridor, as a pistol-shot reverberated throughout the cave.
In the semi-gloom of the passage a man staggered and groaned once—then sunk to the ground, and the figure of a woman fell with him!
It was Lava-Bed Kit, shot by Baltimore Bob, whose right hand griped a smoking pistol!
A wild shout of approval greeted the treacherous shot, and the exultant Indian leaped toward his victim, hatchet in hand, when the most terrible of explosions shook the cave!
The Indians who stood around the shell reeled from the spot, and he whose hatchet had shivered the cap, was flung to the remotest end of the cave, headless and disemboweled.
The cavern, too, was wrapped in darkness, for a portion of the death-freighted missile had scattered the fire, and groans of pain and terror made the place a very Pandemonium.
But this did not last long.
Captain Jack and his principal chiefs luckily escaped injury, and soon a new fire revealed the work of destruction.
Four savages lay dead in the cave, and three others possessed wounds that would soon terminate their existence. The wonder was that the shell did not work greater destruction, and that none but warriors felt its effects.
Baltimore Bob, flung backward against the wall of the cavern, started forward again; but was arrested by a wild cry from Jack.
He turned.
“Where’s Artena?” asked the Modoc chief, pointing to the spot occupied by the Squaw Spy a moment prior to the explosion.
Artena was missing!
Baltimore Bob looked about the cavern, then turned to his chief again.
“Artena’s been blown to atoms,” he said. “She stood there just a second before the noise.”
Before Jack could reply, another shell dropped into the cavern, and the savages shrunk toward the corridors.
“We must leave this hole,” said Jack. “Blue-coats’ big balls got sharp eyes. They see Modoc here.”
The Indians were not averse to leaving.
Theresa, the scout’s daughter, lay across her father’s body, stunned by the explosion, and Bob snatched her away as he turned to his clansmen again.
“We must go, and that quickly,” he said, in hurried accents. “Charley, pick up yon white dog—quick!”
The Indian addressed—Boston Charley—sprung forward, and lifted the limp form of Evan Harris from the spot to which he had been hurled by the bursting of the shell.
“No use, he’s dead,” he said, glancing from the bloody face to Bob.
“Dead! No, he shan’t be dead!” cried the mad chief. “I’ve got an old score to wipe out with him yet. Dead? no! see, he gasps. Evan Harris, I’m going to have the satisfaction of killing you before I die.”
Sure enough, the young ranger gasped, and opened his eyes convulsively.
His face was covered with blood, and it was difficult to tell the position of his wound. That the exploding shell had injured him was patent to all, and the savages did not pause to see whether the wound was a mortal one.
“Iron balls hurt when they burst,” said Jack, turning from the spectacle of the bloody face, and several minutes later the cave was tenantless so far as animation was concerned.
Two of the wounded Indians had been put beyond misery by Mouseh’s tomahawk, which in this case did a humane service, while the third died without the aid of that weapon.
Near the mouth of the corridor lay the giant form of Lava-Bed Kit, the revolver still clenched in his right hand, and his face, pale as death, turned toward the fire, which burned fiercer than before.
Captain Jack led his band into the passage toward which he had lately sprung, with ’Reesa South in his arms, and the journey underground to the new stronghold began.
Below the surface of the Lava-Beds, as I have said, a perfect honeycomb of dark passages exists. Therefore the savage can retreat from one stronghold to another—miles distant—without once showing his face above the earth. Against such disadvantages our troops were compelled to fight the Indians, and the considering reader has long since ceased to wonder at the prolongation of the war.
Through some of these caves rapid streams make their way, and emerge into daylight, eventually to greet the ocean that laves the Pacific slope.
The underground retreat was made in silence. The sullen roar of the mortars never left the red-skins’ ears, and ever and anon the explosion of the iron missiles sounded dangerously near.
“Here we fight to the death!” said the Modoc chief, in a determined tone, suddenly pausing, and waving the torch above his head. “The blue-coats shall never drive Mouseh from this stronghold.”
Very soon a fire of sage-bush illuminated the interior of a cave, smaller than the one just vacated, but better adapted to a stubborn and successful defense.
“The shells of the big mouthed guns do not reach here,” said Scar-faced Charley, with a grim smile of satisfaction. “We are four miles from the place where the iron killed our braves.”
“Yes, four miles,” said Jack. “Charley, where think you is Artena?”
“Dead!” was the reply. “Shell blow her all to pieces.”
The expression that crossed the Modoc’s face told that he would fain not believe this. Jack could not believe that Artena was the enemy’s spy, and he would receive her into his confidence again were she to return.
Why should Artena, who was a Modoc, betray her own people?
Mouseh lowered fierce glances upon Baltimore Bob, who had boldly accused Artena of treason, and declared that he had heard her deliver the spy’s message to General Gillem.
His story had occupied the time that intervened between the girl’s entrance into the Modoc stronghold and the arrival of Kit and Cohoon above it; and, as the reader has seen, Jack’s chiefs, none of whom bore Artena any good-will, decided that she should die.
But the fatal shell seemed to have accomplished the task assigned to the tomahawk.
’Reesa (permit us, reader, to call the scout’s child by the pretty nickname which he had bestowed upon her) recovered consciousness before the new fort was reached, and, after a long time, realized her position. She was exercised almost to insanity concerning the fate of her father, and was afraid to question her jailer about him. So she spared her breath, and when she saw the blood-stained face of Evan Harris, she started forward with the cry of “father!”
“Father? he’s not your father!” cried Baltimore Bob, and grasping the girl rudely he flung her away.
She described several mad circles toward the wall, and with a cry of shame for the brutal act, Captain Jack bounded forward to snatch her from the stones.
But he did not succeed, and striking the wall a fearful blow with her head, ’Reesa South sunk to the floor, again bereft of consciousness. Then the red rebel sprung toward the ruffian, and whirled him around until they stood face to face.
“Bob must treat pale girl better,” said Jack, calmly. “If he fling her away any more, he shall leave Lava-Beds.”
An oath shot from the torturer’s lips.
“What is she to you?” he demanded, with flashing eyes. “Does Mouseh stoop from the Generalship of a great war to interfere with the business of one of his spies? The girl is mine! I sent the young bucks to the Lost River, and paid them to bring her to me. So, Mouseh, attend to the conduct of the war, and I’ll attend to my own affairs. I think we understand each other perfectly, now.”
He did not wait for Jack to reply, but turned to the young ranger, who, lying on the ground, had heard with strange emotions the angry words of the twain.
“Get up,” said Baltimore Bob, addressing him. “I want to talk with you.”
Slowly, for the loss of blood had told seriously on his strength, the ranger rose to his feet, and calmly faced the rascal.
“White man, there’s an enemy near who has a blood score to settle with you,” said Bob. “He saved you from the vengeance of Mouseh last night, for, let me tell you that it is now day. Perhaps you can guess who that enemy is. I will summon him hither.”
The Indian turned with a curious smile and had advanced a step toward the corridor, when the youth strode forward, and put forth his hand, for he was unbound.
“Stay!” he said. “I know you. You need not change your garb. You are the white man who arrested the arm of Captain Jack last night. You are the deadliest enemy I have on earth. Let us settle the old score now, and settle it forever.”
“We will!” cried Baltimore Bob, and, as he wheeled, he drew a revolver. “You shot me once for the love of ’Reesa South. Men don’t always kill at fifty paces; but at this distance, ’Van Harris, I am a death-shot, with the revolver. Yes, we’ll settle the old score, and settle it forever.”
With the last word the shining hammer shot back with the fateful clicks that follow such movement, and the would-be-murderer raised his arm.
But, simultaneously with the latter movement, Evan Harris’ right hand shot upward, then forward, and closed on a revolver!
“Who threw him that weapon!” demanded Baltimore Bob, forgetting, in his anger, that he was at the mercy of his foe.
His eye swept the red group as he spoke, but not a lip answered him.
“I’m your equal now, Rafe Todd,” cried the young ranger’s voice. “Come, let us finish this business.”
“I will not!” cried the renegade—“not now, at least,” and then he turned to the Modoc chief.
“Mouseh, you threw him that firearm. You lie if you say you didn’t. You hate me for—I don’t know what. Step out here. Don’t act the coward’s part. I’ll fight you fair.”
The next moment Captain Jack snatched a revolver from Hooker Jim’s hands, and boldly confronted the painted white man.