Norton lay in paralysed amazement while his wrists were freed, and Tecumthe turned to Red Hugh. The Indian, wasting no time on questions, seemed quite conversant with the whole situation.
"Be ready," he whispered rapidly. "Take the young woman from the door when I strike!"
Red Hugh grunted, and Tecumthe once more assumed his negligent attitude as Grigg returned across the floor.
Norton's wild surge of astonished delight soon passed. The thick moccasins had protected his ankles to some extent, but his hands were for the moment useless, all circulation stopped by the tight thongs.
After all, Tecumthe could do little against this murderous gang by himself. How, then, did he intend to "strike"? Did he have a band of his warriors outside?
"It wasn't such a wild shot about those moccasins after all," came Red Hugh's chuckling whisper. "Looks like he's going to give us a chance to slip away. Work your arms a bit."
The Louisianian nodded, and very slowly perceived life creeping back into his numbed hands. Grigg and the rest were roaring at the antics of the drunken, fighting Miamis; Duval, perched on a big hogshead at the far end of the room, was inciting them to further efforts.
Locked in pairs, the warriors were striking, kicking, rolling over the floor in a bestial encounter which left Norton shocked to the core; he had heard of these affairs often but had never seen one before.
Duval's men were plying them with liquor amid wild shouts of encouragement, and were fast growing drunk themselves; so far, however, they were too much interested in their amusements to bother the squaws, who stood lined up against the farther wall and grouped around the door.
Again Grigg's interest got the better of his prudence, and with a bellow he leaped out to join in the horse-play. Kitty, left alone, shrank past the tall figure of Tecumthe toward Norton, who put out his hand and gripped her arm.
"Quiet!" he said softly, as she turned with a startled exclamation. "Be ready to make for the door, Kitty."
Wide-eyed, she stared into his face for a moment, and under cover of her body Norton half rose to take the pistols which Tecumthe passed him. He put one into the hand of Red Hugh then waited.
There was not long to wait. With a sudden movement, Tecumthe flung the blanket from his splendid figure and stood forth in all the glory of his half-naked bronze, unpainted. His voice rang out like a clarion:
"Peace, dogs!"
Some of the Miamis ceased their scuffling; others continued: one startled oath passed around the line of white men as they saw him step forward. He made no pause, but raised a clenched fist.
"Dogs of white men!" And his clear voice seemed to hold even Duval transfixed. "Outcasts from your own race! Murderers! Why do you thus debase my red brethren, the Miamis? I know you—who you are and what you do in the Shawnee country. I know your crimes. I am going to show my white brethren that Tecumthe can punish murderers better than they!"
As the dread word Tecumthe passed through the hall, Duval leaped to his feet with a yell of warning. It was too late. The line of squaws flung off their blankets and stepped forth as warriors in all the glory of Shawnee war-paint, rifles in hand. From outside came one shrill war-whoop—and the interior of the building became an inferno as the first rifles roared out.
Awful as the thing was, Norton had no pity for Duval's gang. He leaped up, seized Kitty, and with Red Hugh at his side made for the doorway. Here a Shawnee halted them with levelled rifle, but after a look at Norton waved them on outside.
Kitty had fainted, mercifully.
The whole clearing seemed covered with yelling, whooping demons. As the three emerged, Norton saw that the kitchens had been fired, the flames lighting up the whole scene. An instant later, while Red Hugh was taking the feet of the senseless girl, Tecumthe himself joined them and led them across the clearing to one of the farther cabins.
Here, under guard of a stalwart warrior, who went leaping off at sight of his chief, they found a trembling, terror-smitten circuit-rider who was too frightened to do more than grovel before the chief. Tecumthe kicked him away, and Norton lowered Kitty's body to the pallet in the corner.
Despite all he knew about this gang, despite their intentions, he felt himself somewhat a traitor to his own race. Red Hugh must have felt much the same thing, for he was standing glaring at the chief, his eyes terrible.
"It is not vengeance," said Tecumthe composedly, watching the low building with gloomy eye. "It is justice. A squaw met my men; they told me of one who wore my moccasins, in bonds. I knew of these white men, and I came in haste. That is all."
"It's not all," cried Norton with sudden remembrance. "There are women in that place——"
"Right!" broke out Red Hugh. "Tecumthe, we must have them, no matter what manner of women they are!"
"Go," said the chief, nodding. "My men have seen your faces and you are safe."
Norton sprang out on the word, and the two men ran side by side to the building. At the doorway, the scene within was horrible; the place was filled with powder-smoke, one corner was afire from a burst lantern, and from the door were pouring drunken Miamis, some of them still fighting together.
And through the fire and smoke white men and red were battling like madmen, with axe and knife and pistol and clubbed rifle. Norton well knew the danger he was in from both sides, but shoving through the crowded mass of Miamis he dashed within, Red Hugh at his heels.
In one corner were crouching the five terrified women, and as the Louisianian fought his way through the struggling, yelling groups, he saw a tall Shawnee tomahawk one of the drabbled figures.
With a yell of fury, he raised his pistol and fired; the warrior sprang high in his death agony, and before he fell Norton was stripping him of knife and tomahawk. Then he turned, and with Red Hugh tried to get the four remaining women to the door.
They were terror-stricken, hysterical creatures, mad with fear and liquor and obscenity, but they were women. As Norton fought his way across the floor, he caught glimpses through the smoke of the combat which raged around him—glimpses which remained etched on his memory for ever.
Grigg, with a huge axe, was standing back to back with Duval, fighting a way across the place amid a surging wave of the redmen. A drunken, trampled Miami was striking right and left with a knife; screams and oaths and prayers rose high as the Shawnee steel bit deep, while over all shrilled the dread war-whoop, keen and terrible.
"God!" breathed Norton. "It's not a fight, but a massacre!"
How they did it he never knew, but between them, he and Red Hugh managed to get the shrieking women to the door and outside. The scene at the door was wild; pirates and Shawnees and drunken Miamis were all mingled in a horrible-struggling mass, trampling dead and wounded indiscriminately. And behind them all, the fire had seized on the whisky kegs and was climbing high through the whole building.
Norton breathed a prayer of thanks that Kitty Grigg knew nothing of what was going on; by dint of ceaseless efforts he got the four women to the shack, at the door of which still stood Tecumthe. Driving them inside, where Kitty lay motionless on the pallet, he jerked the weak-mouthed circuit-rider to his feet.
"Look after them, you," he snarled, and rejoined the chief and Red Hugh outside.
Forth from the long barn, whose farther end was now all aflame, was pouring a rout of men, white and red intermixed, battling to the death. One of the rivermen started across the clearing, but a dozen bullets from the watching warriors caught him; the place seemed to vomit death and destruction. With a dark look Tecumthe, who had himself struck no blow, turned to Red Hugh.
"Bear witness, Captain Moore," he said sternly, "that we take neither scalps nor plunder! We make no war upon white men, but upon murderers——"
"Moore?" cried Norton suddenly. He caught Red Hugh by the arm and swung him around. "Is that your name—Hugh Moore? You're not the Captain Moore who left Cincinnati with my father——"
"God in heaven!" broke out Red Hugh hoarsely, gripping him and staring into his eyes. "Are you Charles Norton's son—look out!"
With a sudden movement, Norton was flung a dozen feet away.
Whether they had broken through the cordon of Indians or had escaped from some rear entrance of the burning building, Norton never found out; but Grigg and Duval, axe and tomahawk in hand, were leaping across the clearing, a string of Shawnees behind them.
Red Hugh's action was all that saved Norton from Duval's tomahawk, which sang over his head and thudded into the building behind him. Duval himself followed it instantly, and gripped Norton as he was rising; while Grigg swung his axe at Norton from the side, to be grappled and flung back by Red Hugh.
Norton saw Tecumthe motion his warriors back, and then saw no more, for he was fighting with a madman. Duval seemed crazed, as he might well be; Norton had whipped out his knife, but had no chance to use the weapon, for the other had gripped his wrists and was throwing all his iron strength into the desperate struggle.
All four of the fighting men crashed together and went down in a confused mass. The shock broke Duval's hold, and as they came up Norton drove with his knife. He felt the steel bite, but still Duval fought on, flinging himself forward bodily and bearing Norton down again.
Meantime, Grigg and Red Hugh were engaged in a mighty struggle, strength against strength, giant against giant. Reeling over the turf, the four men again came together in mad collision; as they did so, Norton sent his knife home for the second time, and now Duval fell away from him.
Barely had he done so when Red Hugh's pistol crashed out. Grigg had taken warning, and ducked, flinging his arms about Moore's waist. Directly behind him was Norton, and as the shot flamed out, the Louisianian flung his arms wide and toppled over the body of Duval.
Then, for the first time, Tecumthe leaped forward. Frenzied by what he had done, Red Hugh had beaten Grigg back with the pistol-butt, and Grigg flashed out his tomahawk to throw. Before his arm came up, Tecumthe had sprung between them like a thing of steel; his own knife flamed in the lurid glare, and Grigg collapsed.
Red Hugh stood for a moment, pistol in hand. There was a look of awful grief on his face, and without a word he knelt over Norton.
For a moment he felt the heart of the Louisianian, fumbled under the latter's shirt, and then held up a small gold eagle.
"Good God," he muttered slowly, as he held the eagle up to the lurid light of the burning buildings. "What's this? What——"
For he had turned over the pin, and had read the letters graven on its under side. Slowly he tottered up, then looked at the uncomprehending Tecumthe, a terrible horror in his eyes.
"Hugh Edward Moore—my own pin—I've killed him——"
And then, with a terrible cry, he fell upon Norton's body.