SILVER RIFLE,
THE GIRL TRAILER;
OR,
THE WHITE TIGERS OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

BY CAPTAIN CHARLES HOWARD.
AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POCKET NOVELS:

No. 45. The Elk King. No. 50. The Wolf Queen. No. 52. The Mad Chief. No. 60. Merciless Mat. No. 64. The Island Trapper. No. 69. Yellow Hunter.

NEW YORK:
BEADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
FRANK STARR & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CONTENTS

[I Ahdeek, the Half-Breed] 9 [II The Figure in the Chapel] 13 [III The Cave] 21 [IV Fighting for a Prize] 27 [V Silver Rifle Among Her Foes] 33 [VI Demanding the Dead] 40 [VIII An Unexpected Death-Shot] 47 [VIII Escaping] 52 [IX The Indian Dogs] 60 [X Danger and Deliverance] 66 [XI Hondurah’s Last Trail] 73 [XII The Dead Hand] 77 [XIII A Blow for a Blow] 82 [XIV Two Scenes in a Tree Top] 88 [XV The Mystery Dissolved] 94

SILVER RIFLE,
THE GIRL TRAILER.

CHAPTER I.
AHDEEK, THE HALF-BREED.

In the center of a thickly-wooded dell, situated about three miles from the southern shore of Lake Superior, a half-breed youth, clad in the habiliments of a Chippewa Indian, discussed a frugal meal. The sun was sinking behind the wonderful Chapel Rocks, and his last beams, stretching through the festooned forests, fell upon and clothed the half-breed in golden light.

His features were clear-cut and regular, his body lithe but well-knit, and a tender expression beamed from the blackest of eyes. A long-barreled rifle rested on his foot, his mink-skin cap surmounted the stock, and on the index finger of his left hand there was a gold ring of singular workmanship, surmounted with a single brilliant.

He was so absorbed in the discussion of his repast, that he grew oblivious to his surroundings, until he put his hands into his pemmican bag, and discovered that his stock of that edible was exhausted.

“Pemmican all gone!” he ejaculated, with a smile. “Ahdeek go, too, now, he and Nahma not meet for three moons. Nahma promised to be in big cave when Ahdeek come back, and Ahdeek much to tell him.”

The youth slowly rose to his feet, picking up his rifle as he executed the movement.

“Sun nearly gone to sleep,” he murmured, glancing toward the west. “Soon he sink to the fishes of Gitche Gumee.”[1]

A moment longer the half-breed lingered. Then he started toward the lake, but with a single stride he came to a halt, and the click, click of a well oiled rifle-lock followed the lifting of his rifle from a “trail.”

A suspicious sound had arrested his steps, and, as he leaned forward, and with shaded eyes tried to penetrate the forest directly before him, the sharp report of a rifle changed the scene.

The half-breed recoiled with a quick ejaculation of surprise, and his own weapon dropped to the ground—the lock knocked out of time by the unseen enemy’s bullet.

“Who shoot?” cried the youth, as he sprung to his trusty gun, and snatched it from the ground.

His exclamation was answered by terrific yells, and as he sprung erect with the crippled rifle clubbed, he found a dozen savages rushing upon him.

He did not speak, but faced the dusky demons with tomahawk in one hand, the rifle in the other. He saw at once that his enemies desired to take him alive, for they could have cleft his heart with a dozen balls while he walked leisurely beneath the tree vines.

“The Chippewas have caged the Tiger!” cried the leader of the Indians, a prepossessing young brave, who had won distinction and his eagle-feathers quite early in life. “They have trailed him long; they have watched for him in the caves of Gitche Gumee; they have followed him through the great wood. Now let him be a man, and surrender when he sees that he can not escape.”

The chief spoke in the language of his nation, and a smile wreathed the lips of the noble quarry, who, a moment after the chief had finished, threw rifle, knife and tomahawk on the ground in token of surrender.

Then he folded his half-naked arms, and surveyed the savages who sprung forward elated with long-sought triumph.

“The White Tiger is a true brave,” said the red leader, as he reached a spot within ten feet of the youth. “He knows when—”

“Ki-o-ee-chee!”

The yell pealed from the throat of the half-breed, and while yet it quivered his lips, he was among his dusky enemies, scattering them like chaff with the butt of his rifle!

The Chippewas recoiled before the impetuosity of the attack, for the youth seemed to have suddenly been transformed into a destroying fury, and quick, sharp exclamations of vengeance continually fell from his lips, while he plied the rifle with a dexterity which told that he was no novice in such warfare.

In a moment he had cleared for himself a path through the ranks of his foes, and once more, with his weapon at a trail, he was pushing toward the lake. But he ran at the top of his speed now, and eight mad red-men were on his trail.

Determined to take the daring half-breed alive, they put forth their entire strength in the pursuit.

Ahdeek ran, perhaps, as he never ran before, for the fellows on his trail were fresh, while before the attack his features and physique indicated fatigue.

However, he cleared fallen trees and clumps of briers with astonishing dexterity, and at length the swash of Superior’s waves against the pictured rocks, fell upon his ears.

“Ahdeek soon meet Nahma, if Kitchi-Manitou watches over him!” said the half-breed, between short breaths. “But he dead; he travel long from the little lake near where Pontiac makes war speeches to his braves, and he loaded with powder for Nahma and Ahdeek.”

The pursuers seemed to notice their victim’s exhaustion; once or twice he touched obstacles which, a few moments since, he could have cleared without difficulty, and, speaking encouragingly to each other, they sent up a chorus of yells which must have fallen laden with doom upon the heart of the hunted.

Nearer and nearer the pictured cliffs Ahdeek approached.

The sun had disappeared beneath the surface of Superior’s restless waves, and the forest was growing dark.

Suddenly, with a grunt indicative of a surprise which smacked of the terrible, the hunted half-breed stopped in his tracks, and threw his rifle above his head, while he griped the blade of his keen knife between his teeth.

The cause for this strange action was the presence of a new foe, and that foe indicated his position by a pair of fiery eyeballs, and low, hoarse growls of bloodthirsty vindictiveness.

Ahdeek might have avoided the danger by rushing on; but the suddenness with which he had discovered the panther—for an upward glance had revealed the wood-terror’s whereabouts—had caused him to halt. It was a perilous moment, and all at once, with a trebly fierce growl, the beast left the limb, and shot down upon Ahdeek like a descending bomb, as fierce and irresistible.

The half-breed recoiled a pace and struck. But his rifle, outreaching too far, fell upon the panther’s haunches, and a second later he was borne backward, his unprotected shoulder between the pearly teeth of the brute.

He struggled bravely, but, weakened by the life-chase and deprived of his knife, he could do but little.

He heard the footsteps, almost drowned by yells, that approached from the east, and then, ceasing to struggle, his head fell back, and calmly he gazed at the brute whose weight seemed to crush his breast.

“Panther eat Ahdeek,” he cried. “Don’t let Chippewa burn him. They hunt him long—panther catch him, at last!”

With the utterance of the last word, the footsteps grew silent, and the following moment the death-yell of the panther mingled with the roar of the water that spent its fury against the foundation of Chapel Rock.

Ahdeek started at the shot, raised himself to his knees, and felt and looked for his weapons.

In a moment his eyes fell upon his rifle, and, with a yell of triumph, he sprung toward it.

He was determined to die rather than surrender to implacable foes, who had lately drank the blood of peaceful traders, “scooped up in the hollow of joined hands.”

He turned, with clubbed rifle, despite the fearful pain which his wounded shoulder caused, and dared the vengeance of his foes with a shout of defiance.

The shout was greeted with one of like import, and a moment later, the Chippewas had closed around the brave half-breed.

Ahdeek struck with his remaining strength; but the rifle was caught by a young Hercules, and wrenched from his grip.

“Now, what says the White Tiger?” cried a savage, triumphantly.

“He says that he slew the Black Eagle with his rifle,” was the reply. “Not far away lie four Chippewas, who have sung the war-song for the last time. Ahdeek struck them! Squaws, the young half-breed has not lived in vain!”

Irritated beyond endurance, the savages contracted their red ranks, and tomahawks shot upward for the carnival of death.

Ahdeek rose with an effort, and faced the savages with folded arms.

“Strike! Send Ahdeek after Black Eagle.”

“The White Tiger of Gitche Gumee dies here!” was the reply, and the spokesman of the party clutched the half-breed’s shoulder, as he raised his knife.

But a yell, the counterpart of which pealed from Ahdeek’s throat when attacked in the dell, startled every one, and the next moment a youthful figure dropped, like a thunderbolt, among the Chippewas.

“Devils!” he cried, hurling aside the Indian who held Ahdeek. “Demons, you’ve caught the wrong man, I say. I am the White Tiger of Lake Superior! I, not the half-breed, am the hunted depopulator of your accursed race!”

The savages recoiled aghast, as a dark cloak fell from the youth’s shoulders, and exposed his handsome figure.

Ahdeek, with a cry of “Nahma!” stepped to the Destroyer’s side.

CHAPTER II.
THE FIGURE IN THE CHAPEL.

The youth’s voice broke the silence that followed his last word:

“The Chippewas face the White Tiger now!” he thundered, as his rifle struck his shoulder, and his eye swept the startled band before him. “He is not merciless. Bad Indians have lied about him; he does not live on blood. Now, back to your lodges toward the rising sun. I spare you now, but if ever you cross the White Tiger’s trail again, Chippewas, you shall feel his teeth then. I spare you for this time, because you are young warriors. Why stand you here staring? Back to the trails that lead to the council-fires. Back! I say, before the White Tiger slays!”

With the last words the youth’s cheek dropped nearer the rifle, and the muzzle almost touched the leader’s forehead.

“Go!” he thundered again. “Hark! the Manitou is speaking; he is painting the waves of Gitche Gumee with his fire.”

The dread of the White Tiger was manifest then, for, without a word in reply, the sub-chief turned on his heel, and strode deliberately into the forest.

“Warriors, follow your chief!” cried the Destroyer, and a moment later he and Ahdeek stood alone amid the prevailing darkness.

“They fear the White Tiger, Ahdeek,” said the youth, with a smile, as he turned to the young half-breed. “Boy, had it not been for your wounded condition, eight Chippewas would not have walked from this spot. But you could not assist, so I took advantage of the terror which I had inspired in their bosoms, and, see, they run from the White Tiger when he follows not.”

“Nahma has broken his word,” said the young half-breed, refusing to return the smile of mingled scorn and contempt that wreathed White Tiger’s lips. “He said that he would never show himself to the red-man while Ahdeek stood among them. They should not see Nahma and Ahdeek with one eye.”

“I know it, Ahdeek; but I could not avoid it to-night. Ahdeek was on the death-trail; Nahma was near, and his arm, his words, not forked like the trees, alone could snatch his brother from the jaws of death. Ahdeek will forgive, will he not?”

They were walking toward the lake now, and in the stillness of that festooned woods the half-breed put forth his hand.

“Ahdeek will forgive his pale brother,” he said, in a low, cautious tone. “Nahma could not keep his oath, and save his Ahdeek.”

“Then all is well, boy,” replied the white youth. “The Chippewas now know that Ahdeek is not the White Tiger of Lake Superior, and that instead of hunting one destroyer, they must hunt, and be hunted by, two. But, boy, did you get the powder?”

“Ahdeek wears two big belts full,” replied the half-breed.

“Good! we shall not want now. What are the Indians doing?”

“Bad work! bad work!” cried the half-breed. “Pontiac has struck one hard blow on the big waters.”

“That Ottawa fiend! How I wish he would show his painted face in these parts!” ejaculated the youth, and his fingers closed on his rifle with determined emphasis as he spoke. “But tell me about that strong blow, Ahdeek.”

Then the half-breed proceeded to give an account of the fall of the lake forts, and the investment of Detroit, all of which was news to the white youth.

“While the Ottawas and their allies struck the posts, the Chippewas struck the trappers hereabouts,” said the White Tiger. “Ahdeek, I can tell you of twenty-eight trappers who fell in their huts or at their traps the selfsame night.”

Ahdeek clutched the Destroyer’s arm.

“Trappers all dead?”

“All but several who escaped in boats.”

“Where Snowbeard?”

“Dead.”

The half-breed groaned.

“Where house?”

“Burned up!”

White teeth gritted audibly in the darkness.

“Now, Ahdeek,” said the youth, “now that Snowbeard is dead, tell me what he was to you. Why have you left the castle at midnight to seek the hut of that old man! Unravel the mystery while I unfasten the boat.”

The youth stooped over the rope that lashed a little boat to a sharp rock, and tugged at the knots.

“Ahdeek can not tell Nahma until he takes the trail to Snowbeard’s house.”

“Boy, I will keep the secret. Is Ahdeek afraid to trust his brother?”

“Afraid to trust the brother whose couch he has shared for many moons? No!” cried the half-breed. “But he can not tell now. Old Snowbeard was dear to Ahdeek, and the Chippewas shall feel more than ever now the wildcat’s claws and teeth.”

The youth did not reply, but continued to work at the boat in silence. Above him the harsh thunder rolled, and the stormy waves and rocky shore were vividly revealed by the glare of lightning.

At length, tired of tugging at knots which the spray had rendered openless, the boy, with an ejaculation of impatience, severed the rope, and the twain seated themselves in the boat.

“I’ll paddle, Ahdeek,” said the white youth. “Don’t worry your shoulder with any work till I get it fixed up, in the castle. Those devilish panthers can bite like all get out.”

“Panthers’ teeth sharp,” replied the half-breed, passing a hand lightly over the crunched shoulder; “but shoulder soon be well.”

“Providence willing,” smiled the youth, and a moment later he continued:

“Ahdeek, a ghost has visited Gitche Gumee during your absence.”

An exclamation of surprise followed this startling announcement, and by the lightning the Destroyer saw a pair of eyes staring into his.

“A spirit from the Manitou-land on the big sea water?”

“I should call what I have seen a ghost,” was the still mysterious reply. “One week ago this very night of storm, I saw it first. I was out on the lake near the Fox’s Leap, and the lightning flashed as it flashes now. The waves were mad, and to a rock that protruded above them I moored the boat, resolved to enjoy the storm. All at once the plash of paddles struck my ears, but the next moment all was still, and I dismissed the thought. Then, just as I had relaxed my vigilance, a flash of lightning came, and, Ahdeek, within five feet of me, lashed to my crag, I beheld a boat.”

“A real boat?” interrupted the half-breed.

“A canoe from spirit-land, I guess,” said the Destroyer, smiling. “The boat, as I could see at a glance, was fashioned like ours, and, boy, it looked like the boat some thief stole from you a moon since. In that boat sat a human being, most beautiful to behold. She was white like the lilies, and as fair. I saw her but a moment, for all became dark, but ere the last beam of light fled I saw her start, for our eyes had met. Instantly I sprung forward and griped her rope, but the next second I heard the zip of a knife-blade, as it cut the wind, and I held a worthless piece of rope in my hand.”

“Spirit gone!” smiled the half-breed.

“Yes, the boat and its occupant had vanished. I could not trail her on water, and I hunted for her till the storm-clouds passed off, and the stars shone again. I’ve looked for her every night since, Ahdeek. I’ve lain for hours in my boat moored to that rock, but the ghost would not come back. I’d like to have you see it, Ahdeek; you’d believe in spirits then, I’m thinking.”

The half-breed laughed in a low voice, but a thoughtful expression soon returned to his face.

“He had a daughter who was a pappoose when the squaw died,” he murmured, in a low tone; but he did not know that the ear of the White Tiger, who was paddling intently through the white-crested waves, almost touched his lips.

“Did White Tiger hear what Ahdeek’s lips said?” exclaimed the half-breed, as the lightning suddenly revealed his brother’s attitude.

“I was listening to the waves, boy,” was the evasive reply, and the paddle was thrust deeper into the water. “We are near the chapel now. Hark! how madly the waves dash against its foundation.”

The youth now guided the boat further out into the lake, and dexterously avoided sunken rocks, which yearned for victims.

The flashes of lightning were quite frequent, and told the voyagers that the storm would discharge its fury about the spot where their cave was situated, nearly nine miles below Chapel Rock.

“I despise this place on such a night,” ejaculated the white youth. “We always strike one rock, and they’re getting thick now.”

The words had scarcely left his mouth when the little canoe brought up against the rock, and all sounds were drowned by a peal of thunder.

“We’re near the chapel,” said Ahdeek.

“Near enough to shoot an Indian from the ‘pulpit,’” replied the Destroyer. “Curse this rock! We’ll rest here, and look at the boat.”

So he threw a noose over the sharp crag, and proceeded to examine the craft which the waves tossed hither and thither, like a cork.

Ahdeek did not assist, but kept his face turned toward Chapel Rock, waiting for something, as his countenance indicated.

That something seemed to be a flash of lightning, for, as it lit up the water, the half-breed started back with a cry of amazement.

“What’s up, Ahdeek?” cried the white boy—for boy in years the young Destroyer seemed—turning quickly from his labor.

“This spirit!” gasped Ahdeek, and his fingers encircled the youth’s arm.

“Look up at chapel and wait,” he continued. “Nahma see ghost high on rock;” and then in silence the twain waited for the lightning.

The “Grand Chapel,” as the famous rock is now called, stood about fifty feet above the level of the lake, and its arched roof was supported by two gigantic and beautiful columns, which appear to have been hewn and placed there by skillful hands. The backward reach of the roof rests upon the main cliff, and within the chapel is the base of a broken column that is strongly suggestive of a pulpit. The roof was then, and still is, crowned with a growth of fir trees.

“Ahdeek sure see ghost in chapel. There! look.”

The lightning played about the great rock a second, and in that brief moment of time the Destroyer beheld the figure of a young girl standing against the “pulpit” in the chapel. The color and trimming of her close-fitting garments could not be distinguished; and her head was crowned with a white fox-cap, and her right hand clutched a rifle whose stock glittered like silver, and rested on the ground at her feet.

She seemed the queen of the storm as she stood above the waves which madly leaped up the base of the rock, eager, as it were, to grip and pull her down.

“The ghost, by heavens!” exclaimed the Destroyer. “Another flash—now!”

They looked again, and in the succeeding darkness clutched each others’ arms.

“Ahdeek, did you see—”

“Indians above the chapel!”

“I saw but one.”

“Ahdeek thought he saw another feather.”

“It might have been a fir.”

“Yes, the light did not last long. The Indian Ahdeek saw, hung over the chapel with a tomahawk in his hand.”

The White Tiger was silent for a moment.

“They’ve tracked her to the chapel, and with the next flash the brave intends to hurl his tomahawk into her brain. Ahdeek, steady the canoe, for God’s sake!”

The half-breed dropped his rifle, and hurried to the furthest end of the light craft, which action served in a measure to steady it in the momentary languor of the waves.

The youth cocked and raised his rifle; but with a cry of horror he quickly lowered it, without firing, before the flash of the next electric bolt disappeared.

Three half-naked, painted, and feathered savages stood within the chapel, and a fourth was lowering himself from the roof!

But the girl—the spirit of the lake—was gone—not a sign of her late occupation of the chapel was visible!

“Strange! terribly strange!” cried the young Destroyer. “I’d give a hand to know where she is.”

“Ask the mad waters,” said Ahdeek. “The brave’s tomahawk knocked spirit from chapel.”

“Don’t make me think thus, boy. She’s too pretty, too bold, to die in such a way. I wonder who she was—or is, for I will not believe her dead.”

“Then how she got from Indians?”

The youth was silenced.

There was but one way to escape the savages, and that was by a leap into the white waters, forty feet below the chapel!

And that leap, seemingly, was but a synonym of death.

“We must go, Ahdeek,” suddenly cried the Destroyer. “But, first, we’ll tell those murderers that somebody besides themselves are abroad. We can shoot into the chapel in the dark. We know exactly where it is. Ready!”

The next moment two rifles were raised, and two reports blended with the roar of the waters.

“Loose the canoe now.”

The half-breed obeyed, and as the paddles kissed the waves once more, the lightning revealed but two Indians in the chapel!

“We dropped two,” said the white youth, triumphantly, “And now—”

He was interrupted by a cry of discovery.

“Ahdeek, what—”

“Ahdeek’s lost his shining ring,” was the startling response. “Oh, Kitchi-Manitou, where is it?”

“In the lake, Ahdeek.”

“No, no, say in the woods, White Tiger. Ahdeek swore to give it to a pale girl after a time. Here, brother, kill Ahdeek for breaking his word. Ahdeek is a bigger fool than Paupaukeewis. Pale girl never get ring now. Ahdeek ought to die for losing it,” and the half-breed hid his eyes as he groaned in all the bitterness of his soul.

“What is the mystery that enwraps this wild boy’s birth and that ring?” murmured the Destroyer, as he steered the frail boat among the rocks. “For months I have tried to fathom it, but can not. He keeps secrets well. He has said that the pale girl might come after the ring some day, and I half—no, I wholly believe that the girl in the chapel was the owner of Ahdeek’s ring, which he would have defended with the last drop of his blood.”

CHAPTER III.
THE CAVE.

It was near midnight when the two voyagers reached their cave home, whose main entrance was through a beautiful arch more than one hundred feet in hight. It lay but eight miles to the west of Chapel Rock, but the time spent by the twain while watching the strange and ghostly tableaux, which the lightning had revealed, prevented them from reaching the “castle” sooner.

The waves were still unpacified; they dashed into the arch with a fury perfectly irresistible, and the Destroyer laid the paddle aside as the white-crested billows took up the barque in their arms, as it were, and hurled it far into the cave.

“Well, Ahdeek, here we are once more,” said the youth, springing from the canoe, which the receding waves had left stranded on the hard floor of the natural hall. “Now, if nobody has disturbed our furniture and so forth, we are, indeed, all right. I, for one white boy, feel sleepy, and I hope daylight will find me in the arms of the drowsy god.”

“Ahdeek not sleepy at all,” was the reply, as the speaker stepped from the boat. “He want to find ring, so that when pale girl come to him an’ say, ‘Where ring?’ Ahdeek say, ‘Here, pale girl,’ an’ he give it up.”

“Boy, where do you think you lost the ring?” questioned the White Tiger.

The half-breed, forgetting that they stood in Cimmerian darkness, answered with a shake of his head, which, of course, his companion could not see.

“Maybe you lost it in the woods, when the Chippewas chased you?” he suggested.

“Ahdeek go back on trail to-morrow. He hunt for ring; if he no hunt, the bones of the old pale-face will rise from his grave and haunt half-breed.”

“Well, we’ll cease to talk about that ring,” said the Destroyer, who had lifted the canoe from the beach, and deposited it on pegs against the black wall. “I’m so glad that you’ve returned safely, and, after supper I’ll fix your shoulder up; then we’ll divide the powder.”

They moved off in the gloom.

“So,” said Ahdeek, musingly, “Chippewas kill all traders. Did they hunt for White Tiger?”

“I should reckon the red fiends did hunt for me,” replied the youth. “Day and night, since the massacre, I have had legions of dusky foes on my trail, but I have succeeded in eluding them, and when they least expected the White Tiger, he would leap upon them, and bury his teeth in their flesh.”

The half-breed uttered a low ejaculation of supreme satisfaction.

Now all conversation ceased, and presently Ahdeek found himself standing alone against a ragged wall. His companion had suddenly, noiselessly deserted him, and presently the whine of a panther’s cub saluted his ears.

“Nobody in castle,” muttered Ahdeek, starting forward, and when he had advanced several steps the flash of flints greeted his vision.

“The coast is clear, boy,” said the Destroyer, looking up from the fire he was kindling. “We’ll enjoy a rest now, and then we’ll see if we can’t find the ring, the ghost, and at the same time, pay the Indians for killing our trader friends.”

The half-breed threw himself before the blaze, and tenderly removed his hunting-coat.

“White Tiger look at shoulder now,” he said; “it beginning to hurt.”

But the boy did not reply. He was gazing at the opposite wall of the cavern, and slowly, and apparently without noticing Ahdeek, he drew a torch from the fire and rose to his feet.

Ahdeek regarded him, silenced by wonder, and afraid to move.

Once or twice the youth flourished the flambeau about his head, to brighten the blaze, and then approached the wall with rapid strides.

“Am I the victim of a delusion?” he queried in a low tone. “Surely I saw marks on the wall—marks which were not there when I left this place four days since.”

Within several feet of the rock he paused, and looked straight ahead, but saw nothing save gray stone, highly polished by the hand of nature.

For a moment he was inclined to laugh at this deception, when suddenly Ahdeek leaped from the fire and with a cry of “The ring!—the ring!” bounded toward him.

Was Ahdeek a victim of the delusion as well as himself?

“There’s no ring here, boy,” began the Destroyer, with a bright smile. “Our eyes—”

But his sentence was broken abruptly, for the half-breed jerked him, with much rudeness, to one side, and pointed to the wall obliquely to their right.

The youth uttered a cry of profound wonderment, for on the glittering surface of the wall, he saw a large ring which, notwithstanding the rude tracery, resembled the bauble that Ahdeek had lately lost!

For a minute the twain looked from the picture into each others’ faces.

What did the ring mean? Who had traced it on the wall?

The Destroyer stepped nearer, and letters suddenly grew into being on the smooth stone. The changing of the torch revealed them.

“What words say?” cried Ahdeek, clutching his comrade’s arm, as he pointed excitedly to the letters which he could not master.

The young death-dealer did not reply, but continued to shift his position until every letter was plainly revealed.

Then he read:

“White Tiger, you have my father’s ring! Meet me here one week from this night, and place it on my finger, else I rid the Chippewas of their Destroyer.

“August 12, 1763. “Signed, Marie Knight.”

The Destroyer read the inscription twice before he moved a muscle.

“Come, brother, what words say?” questioned Ahdeek, impatiently.

“They tell you to place the ring on the pale girl’s hand one week from last night, or die.”

The half-breed smiled ludicrously.

“Ring lost.”

“It must be found!”

“But where pale girl?”

The death-dealer shook his head, and the scene on Chapel Rock again swam before his eyes.

“How girl know Ahdeek had ring?” questioned the boy, a moment later.

“No doubt she caught a glimpse of it in the wood, as you rushed past her some time. She has tracked you to the cave, and discovered that here you live. She believes you the real White Tiger, and, entering here last night, and finding you absent, she has left her commands on the wall.”

Ahdeek nodded, and murmured, “Good, good!”

At length he looked up.

“Come, White Tiger, tie up Ahdeek’s wounds,” he said. “He want to go hunt pale girl’s ring. He go ’fore day.”

“No, no, you must stay here until I leave,” said the Destroyer, with determination. “Consider, boy; she will not return for one week. In two days we can retrace your tracks. You lost the ring in the wood to-night—not in the lake, as I first thought, for your hands were not in the water. But really, boy, I think that the pale girl will never come for the ring.”

The half-breed looked up inquiringly.

“I believe that we saw her in Chapel Rock to-night.”

Ahdeek shook his head.

“May be pale girl,” he said.

“Then she must be dead. So, Ahdeek, don’t trouble yourself—”

“Pale girl not dead!” interrupted the half-breed, bringing his hand down upon his brother’s shoulder with emphasis. “He said that she would come for ring, and while he spoke, Kitchi-Manitou took him to his lodge.”

“Who was he, Ahdeek?”

“Can’t tell now, White Tiger,” was the reply. “She not dead; she must have ring within six sleeps, or Ahdeek steps upon the long trail.”

“No!” cried the young avenger. “Ahdeek, we are brothers, and I will kill the person who sheds one drop of your blood—I’ll break the arm that is uplifted to strike you.”

“White Tiger better not strike pale girl,” said the half-breed, looking the Destroyer squarely in the eye. “She—”

Here he caught his tongue, and for the fourth time called attention to his shoulder.

Before turning to the fire, the youth re-read the writing on the wall, and, as he stepped therefrom, the lines gradually faded, until they were entirely lost to his vision.

Ahdeek remained sullen during the dressing of his wound, which was not so bad as it might have been, the heavy hunting-frock having protected his flesh.

“I do not think the Indians killed Doc Cromer,” said the Destroyer, looking up from the meal they were discussing before the blaze. “I couldn’t find his body after the massacre, and I wonder that he has not been here. You know, boy, that he was the only trader who knew our cave.”

“Oh, he dead, like all the traders!” said the half-breed. “Indians make sure work of traders. Pontiac got long arms and strong voice.”

The final word still quivered Ahdeek’s lips, when the boy Destroyer dropped his pemmican at the edge of the fire, and leaped to his feet.

A second later the half-breed followed his example, and side by side the twain stood facing the entrance with ready rifles.

A score of rifle-shots, scarcely distinguishable from a single report, had risen above the noise of the storm, just beyond the mouth of the castle.

“The Chips are everywhere!” exclaimed the youth, in a low tone. “Who can they be chasing to-night?”

The question was answered by the sound of footsteps, and the next moment a figure bounded from the corridor into the firelight. Upon a sight of it, the faces of the tenants of the cave touched their rifle-stocks; but the Destroyer quickly dropped his weapon and covered Ahdeek’s flint with his hand.

“Spare him, Ahdeek!” he cried. “’Tis Cromer, thank God!”

The new-comer looked up at the mention of his name, uttered a light cry of joy, staggered forward, and then sunk heavily to the ground.

“Shot by the red fiends!” cried the Destroyer, springing toward the prostrate man, who lay on the rocks bleeding, gasping, and trying to rise.

“Leave me!” he ejaculated, noticing the Destroyer’s action. “They were watching the cave, curse—the—hounds! Listen! there! they’re coming now. Go! they can’t torture the old trader who outwitted them at his cabin!”

“We won’t leave you, Doc,” said the youth. “We are not ingrates.”

“Rifle, rifle, then!” shrieked the trader. “One more shot before I go!”

With mighty effort he raised himself to his knees, and griped the weapon which Ahdeek, with a cry of admiration, thrust forward.

There was no retreating. The trader was too weak to run; the avengers too brave, too manly to desert him to the tomahawk.

The moment that followed the trader’s last words saw the mouth of the corridor swarming with Indians.

They were met by a trio of rifles, not a shot of which was thrown away.

The Chippewas did not pause; their dead comrades were hurled aside before they could touch the ground, and, though the heroic three used their pistols to advantage, they rushed on to certain victory—which so often rewards overwhelming numbers.

Doc Cromer, the trader, sunk exhausted before the fierce onset, and the clubbed rifles of the White Tiger and his darker brother, who disputed the ground with heroic valor, could not turn the fortune of battle.

For a moment a confused mass of humanity swayed to and fro in the center of the cavern, then it became entangled, and a terrific shout soared to the circled roof.

It was a shout telling that the bitterest enemies the Indians ever possessed, had fallen alive into their hands.

CHAPTER IV.
FIGHTING FOR A PRIZE.

The light that broke upon the lake after the night of storm and tempest greeted a calm.

The white crested billows had returned to their strongholds, but the lake shore was strewn with their handiwork. Strong trees, which the wind had uprooted on islands, had been dashed upon the beach, and in some places tree was heaped on tree, lending a terrible aspect to the stony shore. Such storms are frequent visitors to Lake Superior, even at this late day.

In the branching top of a young fir, which lay at the edge of the water, not far from Chapel Rock, something scintillated like a diamond, in the strong light.

Its brightness would have dazzled the eyes of a beholder, and, with the belief that it was something very valuable, he would have been drawn to the spot.

As the sun climbed the eastern horizon and darted its beams over the “pulpit,” directly upon the shining “thing,” the fir-limbs moved as though something imbued with life lay beneath them, and possessed the curiosity.

The woods and shores of Superior swarmed with Indians, and it is not surprising that from the cliffs above, a red hunter riveted his eyes upon the particular spot described. Evidently the young brave had lately reached the hights, for his dress showed proofs of a long journey, and the results of a late war expedition, in the shape of a snowy scalp, hung at his deer-skin girdle.

He had approached the cliff with that proverbial caution characteristic of his people, and almost the first thing that met his gaze was the shining object among the fir boughs. He started at the unexpected sight, and when, at last, the thing resolved itself into a silver star, he rose with a cry of mingled wonder and exultation, and prepared to descend. Perhaps he had caught a glimpse of something other than the bright star, for an anxious expression overspread his face, and he looked cautiously about while he clambered down a great fissure in the cliffs. All signs of fatigue had left him now; he seemed the fresh warrior of a fortnight since, and, after walking erect toward the fir awhile, he suddenly dropped on all fours, and moved forward again, like a wary animal.

He reached his objective point at last, and, parting the verdant boughs, peered through upon the highly ornamented butt of a light rifle!

The next moment the young Indian’s eyes fell upon the owner of the weapon.

She lay near the polished barrel, only deeper among the fir, and the hue of a corpse rested upon her fair face and slender hands.

The peeping lids gave the savage a glimpse of blue eyes, and the masses of golden hair, darkened by the water they held imprisoned, must have captivated him.

Motionless, breathless she lay on the stony ground, and the hand which the Indian touched was as cold as ice.

He shook his head sorrowfully as he tenderly lifted the body from the ground.

“Silver Rifle dead! She no be Dohma’s now! Why she come to Gitche Gumee? To die by the big waters an’ be buried by the Chippewa whose heart she stole three moons ago? Dohma go bury Silver Rifle in big hole, far from bad waters.”

He did not neglect the beautiful rifle, as he moved down the lake shore with his burden, for he bore it in the same hand that griped his own.

A few minutes’ walk brought him to one of the Superior’s numerous caverns, which he entered by wading to his waist in the cold water. Soon he found himself in gross darkness, through which he groped his way for several hundred feet.

At length he paused, and laid his burden on the ground.

Then, with the aid of his flints, he kindled a fire among some dried fir-boughs, into the light of which he bore his silent prize.

“No Injun strike Silver Rifle,” he murmured aloud. “She fell into water, and the big waves around her. Dohma follow her long time to tell her he love her; but he never catch her till—now!”

While he spoke he was unconsciously chafing the bare arms which the loose-fitting sleeves revealed, and all at once he started to his feet, and gazed with all the Indian superstition in his dark eye, upon the girl.

The eyes had opened and closed with a dreaminess not of earth.

A minute later and Dohma was at her side again.

“Silver Rifle live for Dohma!” he cried with joy. “She no dead, now. The Great Spirit has heard the prayer of the young chief!”

Once more he fell to the work of restoring the girl to consciousness with renewed vigor, and at last found her staring into his swarthy face. For several moments she seemed to be recalling certain reminiscences of the past, and then, all at once, she rose to her feet, and deliberately picked up her silver rifle.

“Silver Rifle no shoot,” said the Indian, with a smile. “Powder all wet, flints make fire, but won’t burn powder.”

She flung the rifle aside, and her hands dropped to her girdle.

“Knife gone, too,” said the Chippewa. “Silver Rifle no weapons.”

Then, like one in a dream, she moved to the Indian’s side, and stood over him in silence. She had not fully recovered her senses.

“Silver Rifle come to Dohma?” he said, gently, taking her hand. “He find her among fir, and bring her to cave.”

She did not resist, and the young savage drew her down to his side, and looked lovingly into her eyes.

Slowly but surely her reason returned, and while the Chippewa was in the midst of a recital of his hunt for her, a footstep sounded on the flinty floor.

Quickly Dohma’s hand shot forward to his rifle, and wheeling as he leaped to his feet, he confronted a huge Indian, a foot taller than himself, and with the physique of a Hercules.

For a moment the two Chippewas faced each other amid dead silence, and then Dohma extended his hand, which the giant griped as he glanced at the girl.

“Silver Rifle and Dohma live in cave?” he said, with a sneer, which, although scarcely perceptible, did not escape the young chief’s notice.

“Dohma find Silver Rifle dead by the big waters. But he bring her back to the world,” was the calm rejoinder.

“Now what Dohma goin’ to do with Silver Rifle?”

“Teach her to love him!”

The giant bit his nether lip.

“Dohma is a Chippewa, so is Renadah,” he said, after a minute’s angry silence. “Dohma is brave, but his aim is not so long as his big red brother’s.”

“But it is as strong!” retorted Dohma, with determination, and as he spoke he calmly stepped between Silver Rifle and the tall chief.

“Dohma is a young fir; Renadah is the great oak that grows in the big woods. He could crush Dohma with one limb.”

“Let him try it!”

“He would not harm his red brother. Our great king, Pontiac, needs brave red-men now; but Dohma, if he would help exterminate the hated English, must do one thing.”

The young Indian did not speak, but noted the glance which Renadah threw over his shoulder at Silver Rifle.

“He must give to Renadah the woman he loves!”

Dohma heard a low cry of horror part a pair of pale lips, and caught a glimpse of Silver Rifle as she recovered her weapon.

“Dohma will not give Silver Rifle to Renadah,” he said, calmly. “He found her dead and brought her spirit back from Manitou-land—so, she is his!”

“She is Renadah’s! The wildcat of the Chippewas saw her before Dohma knew that she was near Gitche Gumee.”

“Renadah lies!”

A cry of rage parted the tall chief’s lips, and he strode forward as his smaller enemy retreated with drawn tomahawk.

“Renadah, Silver Rifle can belong to but one of us,” said Dohma. “We will fight for her!”

“So be it!” cried Renadah, contemptuously. “Back beyond the fire, Silver Rifle, touch the wall and be a stone there. Dohma and Renadah fight for you.”

Without a word the girl hurried to the wall of the cavern, and surveyed the red duelists.

On either side of the fire they stood with ready weapons, and at a signal from Renadah the tomahawks were uplifted.

A second signal quickly followed, and the hatchets went crashing through the air like thunderbolts.

Silver Rifle saw Dohma’s tomahawk miss his enemy’s head by an inch, and a wild shriek that quickly followed, told her that the giant’s aim had been truer.

Dohma threw up his arms, and while he spun round like a top, his antagonist shot toward him with a cry of triumph!