THE SQUAW SPY;
OR,
THE RANGERS OF THE LAVA-BEDS.
BY CAPT. CHAS HOWARD,
AUTHOR OF THE FOLLOWING POCKET NOVELS.
- 45. The Elk King.
- 50. The Wolf Queen.
- 52. The Mad Chief.
- 60. Merciless Mat.
- 64. The Island Trapper.
- 69. The Yellow Hunter.
- 72. Silver Rifle.
- 82. Kenton, The Ranger.
- 87. Phil Hunter.
- 89. The Girl Avenger.
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.
THE SQUAW SPY;
OR,
THE RANGERS OF THE LAVA-BEDS.
CHAPTER I
LAVA-BED KIT.
“Where’s McKay?”
“Still absent with his Warm Springers. I do not expect him before midnight.”
“And Artena?”
“Dead or alive, she is somewhere among the Indians. She promised to be here against sunset, and see, that hour is with us now.”
The first speaker glanced toward the west, and remained silent for a minute.
The handsome military man at his side quietly adjusted his field-glass, which he brought to bear upon a dark ridge against the horizon.
“General, this has been a bloody day,” said the rough borderman, venturing to disturb the officer in the midst of his observations. “We’ve lost as good boys as ever lived.”
Down came the field-glass, and General Gillem sighed as he turned to his companion.
“A disastrous day for us truly, Kit,” he said. “No nobler fellows than Thomas, Howe and Wright. Now shall the war be pushed with vigor. This day’s massacre has heated my blood till it tingles through my veins. The fiends expect no quarter, as none they give. By Heavens, none they shall have! If we could but get the master-spirit of this war—the Napoleon of these red Arabs.”
“Captain Jack, General?”
“Captain Jack or Mouseh, as his people call him. I want to see the murderer of Canby swing. But, why does not Artena come?”
“Perhaps she has got in trouble,” said the Oregonian. “If so—there! somebody is coming now.”
General Gillem raised his field-glass, but could distinguish nothing, for the shadows of night were gathering and the smoke of savage fires hung heavily over the ground where so many brave soldiers had lately fallen before three score of Modoc rifles.
“I heard hoofs,” said the ranger. “Tis Artena at last, General.”
As he uttered the last words, the dark figure of a horse came in view and presently the animal halted before the twain.
Gillem started forward.
“Artena!” he cried, recognizing the womanish figure seated on the Indian saddle.
“White war-man good; he wait for Artena,” said the woman. “But who with him?”
“Kit, Artena,” said the ranger quickly, starting forward. “I’ve been here since the bloody fight of this morning.”
Artena bent forward eagerly.
“Kit in fight?” she asked anxiously.
“Yes; Kit South never throws away a chance to draw trigger on a Modoc.”
“Did Kit see Indian with cavalry hat on?” asked the squaw. “He have white feather in cap.”
“I think I did get a glimpse of such a devil,” answered the Oregonian. “In fact, I know I did, girl—but why do you ask?”
“That Indian Baltimore Bob.”
Kit South started.
“Talk to the General now, Artena,” he said, a moment later. “Tell him the news, and when you have done, I want a few words with you.”
Then Gillem put numerous questions to the Modoc girl, from whom he learned much concerning the present whereabouts of the Modoc chief, and something about his plans for future operations.
It was the night of the 26th April 1873—a day long to be remembered in the annals of Indian warfare.
For upon the morning of that eventful day, a reconnoitering party under command of the gallant Captain Evan Thomas, of Battery H, Fourth Artillery, left General Gillem’s camp and proceeded in the direction of the Modoc stronghold. The little command reached the foot of the high bluffs south of the lava-bed stronghold without molestation, and were preparing to feel their way further, when the Modocs opened upon them a severe fire under cover of the basaltic rocks.
The history of that brief and bloody engagement is too well known to be recounted here.
Armed with Spencer carbines and breech-loading muskets, and sheltered by the rocks, the red rebels dropped such men as Thomas, Howe, and Wright, and, in the end, inflicted a signal defeat upon the troops.
Donald McKay and his Warm Spring Indians, of whom much hereafter, participated in the engagement; but remained among the rocks hunting, at the same time, for additional scalps and information.
“Artena,” said Gillem, after conversing some time with the spy, “I trust that you will not run your head into danger. We can not afford to lose you.”
“Artena watch out,” said the girl, with a smile. “She no fool squaw. Modocs no think she look for white war-man. She tell Jack all ’bout soldiers,” and there was a merry twinkle in the black eyes that looked down upon the bearded son of Mars.
“Now, Kit, you may talk to Artena,” said the soldier. “But do not keep her here too long, as no doubt she is hungry; so, when you are through, bring her to my quarters.”
“Artena no hungry,” cried the girl quickly. “Mebbe she and Kit go off to-night, again.”
“If so, for Heaven’s sake be careful, Kit South; we truly need such men as you now. If you do go out to-night, and should encounter McKay, deliver this message.”
As Gillem was speaking his hand traced a few words on a blank memorandum leaf, which he handed to the scout.
A moment later Artena and the stalwart Oregonian were alone.
“Do you think we will succeed to-night?” asked the mountaineer, eagerly.
“Yes.”
“I thought so when you looked at me not long ago. I could hardly smother my hopes when the General and I war waiting for you. I wanted to tell him that Captain Jack would be in camp to-morrow.”
“He will be there!” said the squaw spy confidently.
“It’ll be the biggest kidnapping on record,” said South. “If we get Jack, then the war won’t last long. Artena, are you sure that the Modocs do not suspect you?”
“Is not Artena a Modoc?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what, Kit?”
“The rebels are shrewd fellows. I knew them long before the war. They may be playing with you.”
“They play with fire, then,” said the girl. “What news in camp?”
“The men are mad enough to eat every Modoc in the Lava-Beds. Three new fellows from Klamath came in just before Gillem and I came out here to meet you.”
Artena started and caught Kit’s arm.
“What they look like?” she asked.
“Like rough fellows, as they undoubtedly are.”
“One tall?”
“They were all tall men.”
“One young?”
“Yes, younger than the other two.”
“He spy.”
“A spy?” cried Kit South. “A white man has more sense than to spy about a camp that holds Donald McKay and Kit South.”
“Anyhow, he spy,” reiterated Artena. “Artena heard Jack say that young white man sleep in Gillem’s camp to-night, and that he would soon know what soldiers going to do.”
“Then I don’t go till he’s caught,” said the scout. “Come, Artena, we’ll go and put Gillem on his guard. Plenty of time for the other thing, you know.”
The girl assented, and the twain deserted the spot, and moved toward the camp.
If the young man referred to was a spy in the interest of Captain Jack, his end was near at hand, for Gillem would treat him to a rope immediately after his capture.
The twain had not proceeded a dozen paces toward the camp when the figure of a man rose from behind a great rock near the spot where they had conversed.
He was clad in the well-known garb of the Oregonian, and rested a long rifle on the stone as he gained his feet.
“So you’re going to tell Gillem about the spy, eh?” he ejaculated in a sneering tone, looking after the couple. “But they’ve got to catch a man before they hang him, and Gillem won’t do neither, I’m thinking. Chris South, how I’d like to put a bullet in your back. I could get away after doing it now,” and the gun was lifted from the stone. “There’s an old grudge between us, but I’ll not settle it now. No, I want to tell you something before I take your worthless life, which will not be long.”
Then, after a pause:
“I wish I had been nearer them. I missed a good many words, but caught enough to know that Artena and the old scout has some deviltry afoot, and if that gal pokes her head into Jack’s camp ag’in, she’ll never get to pull it out any more.”
Then he picked up the rifle and moved away at a rapid pace toward the spot where the Indians were holding hellish carnival over their bloody victory of the past day.
Half an hour later Kit South and Artena returned to the conference knoll—both well-mounted.
The camp had been thoroughly searched, but no spy was found.
The two frontiersmen who had accompanied the missing man to camp, declared that they had noted nothing suspicious about him; but General Gillem was satisfied that he was a spy.
“Now for the kidnapping of Jack,” said Kit, with an air of triumph, as they moved in a westerly direction. “If he proves too much for us, Artena, do you know what’s to be done?”
The girl nodded, and laid her hand on the scout’s revolver.
“Yes, that’s it,” said South, and in the faint starlight he examined the chambers of the deadly weapon.
“I do wonder how the folks are to home?” he said in a tone scarcely above a whisper. “I haven’t heard a bit of news from the hut on Lost River for three weeks. I hope God will keep the old woman and ’Reesa safe, while I’m fighting the Modocs.”
“What that Kit say ’bout Lost River?”
It was Artena’s voice, and it startled the scout.
“I war talking about the folks up there.”
“Kit got girl there?”
“Yes.”
“Girl with blue eyes?”
“Yes! Artena, for Heaven’s sake, what are you driving at?”
“Young bucks come to Mouseh yesterday with captives from Lost River.”
The scout instantly stopped the squaw spy’s horse, and whirled her about in the saddle until he could look squarely into her eyes.
“My God! has the tomahawk been at work in Oregon?” he exclaimed, in an undertone. “Artena, is there a girl in Jack’s stronghold with blue eyes?”
“Yes, Kit.”
“Did you talk with her?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She say her father with war-man Canby. She no know Canby dead.”
“Great Heaven!” groaned Kit South; “it is my ’Reesa! Artena, where was her mother?”
“The young bucks killed her!”
The scout’s head dropped upon his broad breast, and for several minutes the horses moved on in silence.
“Artena?”
The girl spy looked up.
“Who led the young bucks?”
“Couldn’t Kit guess?”
“I can now, Artena. Baltimore Bob, you shall pay for your crowning act of villainy. Girl, ’Reesa’s got to leave the Lava-Beds.”
“Yes, but we must catch Jack first. The scout has sworn to help Artena.”
“I’m not going back on my word. We’ll kidnap the Modoc Tecumseh to-night, and then I’ll get ’Reesa back, and settle accounts with the veriest red devil this side o’ the Rockies!”
As brave and as cunning as old Kit South was he was doomed to discover the truth of the ancient adage—“There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.”
CHAPTER II.
JACK AND HIS CAPTIVES.
While the foregoing scenes were transpiring on the edge of our camp, other events of importance to our romance occupied the Lava-Beds, and their immediate vicinity—events destined to introduce the reader to characters who have lately carved their names on history’s tablets with the tomahawk and scalping-knife.
About a fire that blazed in the center of a large cave, stood and reclined, perhaps twenty-five Indians. With several exceptions all were chiefs, and those exceptions were squaws. The men were clothed in the noble army blue, wearing cavalry hats, sabers and regulation sashes. The clothes of some of our fallen braves fitted the Indians to a nicety, and they laughed to themselves when they surveyed the garments, and thought of the massacre which their red hands had lately inflicted.
Conspicuous among the Modocs stood a tall fellow, about forty years of age. His hair was slightly tinged with gray, and there were crow’s-feet on his forehead, which seldom come to a savage of his years. He wore the fringy leggings of the western tribes; but his body was robed in a close-fitting regulation coat buttoned tightly over his chest, and upon the blue shoulders glittered two gold stars—a General’s insignia. His head was surmounted by a military hat, and his waist was encircled by a beautiful sword sash, from which hung a sword indicative of rank.
This man, in short, was the redoubtable Captain Jack, and the uniform he wore had once graced the manly form of a lamented warrior—General Edward Canby.
Ever and anon shouts of Indian triumph entered the cave, and caused Mouseh’s companions to exchange pleasing glances; but the Modoc tiger did not deign a smile; he stood erect with brows knit, and lips glued together, as it were, by the icy glue of death.
All at once he became a living thing, for he had grown into a statue, as a young savage, clad in the full uniform of a United States artillery-man, entered the cave.
He seemed to be the person for whose arrival Jack had been watching.
“What news, Tom?” asked the chief starting forward, and as the sound of his voice, melodious for a man of his years, fell upon the ears of his co-rebels, there was a movement about the fire, and all started to their feet.
“McKay and his red foxes are near,” said the young Indian. “They crawl among the rocks like lizards, and we can not hear them.”
“Can you not see them?”
“Now and then,” answered Shack Nasty Tom. “Tom saw one; he waited and struck; see!”
As he spoke he drew a scalp from his bosom, and flung it across the Modoc’s arm.
The other chiefs crowded about the trophy.
“’Tis not McKay,” said Captain Jack, in a disappointed tone, “but one of his accursed rangers is scalpless, thanks to Tom. Chiefs, here is a right arm that is dear to Mouseh,” and turning abruptly to the red faces that appeared at his right, the Modoc terror stretched forth his muscled arm.
“Dear says Mouseh is this arm to him; but he will give it for the scalp of Donald McKay.”
“And here is an arm for the hair of the Lost River hunter,” and a tawny arm, upon which the muscles stood out like ropes, was thrown across Jack’s.
The last speaker was Boston Charley.
The next moment a wild shriek rung throughout the cavern, and a young girl, clad in civilized habiliments, darted from a gloomy corner of the cave, and threw herself among the scarlet rebels.
“He is my father!” she cried, fastening her eyes upon the last red speaker. “You shall not take his life. Already, fiends, you have slain my mother, and if you dare to take the scalp of the only relative I now possess, I’ll drive the knife and bullet to more than one red heart.”
The Indians stood speechless while she spoke, and when she had finished, Boston Charley darted upon her with the hoarse growl of the disturbed jungle tiger.
A moment later and the young girl might have been brained, had not Jack caught the uplifted arm, and clutched a hatchet with a determination not to be disobeyed.
“She is Baltimore Bob’s,” he said, looking squarely into Charley’s maddened eye. “He has a claim upon the girl which we must not meddle with. We strike the blue-coats who carry guns and swords—not women who wear long hair.”
Cowed by his chieftain’s eye and the menacing hatchet, Charley dropped the arm he had taken, and the beautiful captive staggered from the group.
“Oh, heavens! have I fallen to the lot of Baltimore Bob?” she cried, sinking back upon the heap of sage-bush, which she had lately deserted. “I have thought, for years, that he was dead; but now to fall into his power again. Oh, heaven protect me.”
“We leave this cave to-night,” said the Modoc chief, addressing his men. “Four miles south of here we find new quarters, from which the blue-coats shall never drive us. Ah, the insults of twenty years ago are being wiped out in blood! Jack treads the path of vengeance now, nor will he relinquish the rifle, until the spirits of his murdered people cry from the spirit-land, ‘Enough!’”
As he uttered the last words, a young chief named Badger Dick stepped before him, for some purpose which must rest forever unexplained, and a second later reeled from the spot with a bullet in his brain.
Instantly every chief cocked his rifle, and stared into the gloom from whence the shot had proceeded.
That the bullet was intended for Jack’s brain was patent to all, but Dick’s action had preserved the red desperado’s life for the scaffold.
The savages drew back from the fire, and a moment later Jack was sneaking toward the hidden enemy.
The formation of the Lava-Beds admitted of a thousand and one admirable concealments for a foe, and every cave could boast of a score of narrow, rocky corridors, many of which would not admit of the passage of a fox. Through one of the latter the bullet had found its way to the brain of Badger Dick, and Jack soon gave over the search, and turned into a larger corridor. This led him into the air, and, looking up, he saw the stars that looked down upon settlers abandoning their homes, all for fear of the knives that he and his merciless followers were wielding so fatally.
The fatal shot had been fired by one of McKay’s Indians, perhaps by the giant half-breed himself, and the Modoc chief was bent upon finding the slayer.
The Rangers of the Lava-Beds, a title which had been gained by McKay’s band of Warm Spring Indians, were scattered about the basaltic rocks, watching the movements of the Modocs, and equally eager to shoot as to spy. They had proved of much annoyance to Jack during the war, for they were versed in savage warfare, and Donald McKay could pit cunning against cunning, with a readiness that irritated the conspirators.
About Mouseh all was still.
He lay among the rocks listening intently, and watching for shadows against their whitish sides.
For several moments he had been debating whether to proceed further, and was on the point of deciding to return to his chiefs, when a slight noise attracted his attention.
With his finger on the trigger of a new Spencer rifle, he turned his head, when a dark form leaped over the flat rock upon which the red brigand’s arm rested, and he went to the ground beneath the onslaught.
A glance would have told the spectator that the new foe could not cope with the Modoc tiger, and that he could hope for victory only in agility, and quick, sure blows.
But these the latter seemed unwilling to bestow; for he beat the Indian’s head against the rocks until he deprived him of his senses.
“Now,” the victor muttered, triumphantly. “I’ve caught the biggest devil of them all; but I’m somewhat like the man who drew the elephant—I don’t know what to do with him. Shall I kill him? No; he must die by other hands than mine. But how can I get him away from here?”
Thus commenting, the youth, a white man, though clad in Indian garments—proceeded to bind his “elephant,” whom he had recognized by the two gold stars on the shoulder and was midway in his task when a low “call,” ten feet below and slightly to his right, caused him to pause.
With his hands on the cords he listened, and at last answered the call.
Then he saw a dark figure approach with the movements of a lazy lizard; but the youth drew his knife through fear.
“Cohoon,” he ventured, at length, in a cautious tone.
“Evan,” replied the figure, and a moment later the captor of Captain Jack had a valuable assistant in the person of a Warm Spring Indian, who is destined to play no inferior part in the intricacies of our romance.
“Jack!” exclaimed the Warm Spring scout, gazing down into the captive’s face.
“Yes, Cohoon; I did not dream of catching this devil to-night. Where’s Donald?”
“Down by Black Creek.”
“Any of the boys near?”
“All away.”
“Then we must take care of the elephant ourselves. Here, tie these legs while I press them together. Draw the rope between them, that’s it. Heavens!”
Well might he utter this ejaculation, for Captain Jack, in one second, had drawn his legs to his chin, and as suddenly had straightened them out again.
Cohoon, struck in the breast by the moccasined feet, went flying over the rocks, and the youth threw himself upon the Modoc again before he could gain his feet.
“I’ll finish you now, devil!” he cried, and the knife shot aloft. “Curse you, Captain Jack—”
The Modoc rose to his feet as though there was no impediment to such action, and the next minute the youth found himself held at arm’s length by the chief of the scarlet rebels.
Captain Jack had not spoken once during the melee, nor did he speak now.
He seemed at a loss how to dispose of his captive.
He could drive the knife to his heart, or hurl him over the cordon of rock that surrounded the mouth of the corridor, and the soldiers would pick him up some time, a shapeless mass of humanity!
A footstep attracted the Indian. Was Cohoon returning?
Jack thought he was; so, raising the young white scout above his head, he stepped upon a rock that elevated him several feet, and bent his body for the death-fling.
But at that moment the figure which had occasioned the noise sprung forward, and caught the chief’s arm.
With a low cry of astonishment the Modoc left the rock, and lowered the scout.
“Spare him for me, Mouseh,” said the new-comer, who was clad in the rough garments of the frontiersman. “I’ve got a score to settle with this chap. Look here, Evan Harris, do you know me?”
As he put the question, he whirled Jack’s captive about, and leaned forward until their faces almost touched.
The scout gazed into the triumphant eyes for a moment, and then started back.
“Great Heavens! is it you?” he cried. “I thought you were dead!”
The new-comer laughed.
“Were I dead, I would surely not be here,” he said. “Evan Harris, I would not have missed this meeting for all the gold in California. I believe there’s a slight difficulty existing between us. We’ll settle it to-night, yet. Now, Mouseh we’ll go to the braves.”
Captain Jack picked the scout up again, and bore him into the corridor.
It was midnight now.
After a while the Modoc again strode into the cave with his captive, but the borderman did not follow.
Where was he?
His disappearance puzzled the scout, nor did he come while they waited, seemingly, for him.
All at once a woman glided into the cave, and as she rose erect in the firelight, the chiefs uttered a name:
“Artena!”
She started slightly when her eyes fell upon the captive scout; but recovered a moment later, and advanced toward the group.
“What news does Artena bring from the lodges of the blue-coats?” asked Jack. “She did not stay long with them, so she must have seen something important.”
“She has; the soldier with the big beard—”
Her sentence was broken by the sudden appearance of an Indian, whose voice filled the cavern.
“Arrest Artena,” he cried. “She is a snake in the grass—a traitress of the deepest dye!”
The denouncer stood in the center of the cave, and pointed a quivering finger at the Indian girl.
She did not stir, but looked the Indian squarely in the eye, as her lips shot in his face these words:
“Baltimore Bob is a liar!”
CHAPTER III.
“GIVE ME ’REESA!”
“Something must have happened to the girl. She was to have been here in one hour, and here I have waited two. It’s after midnight now. I’ll wait another ten minutes, and then I’ll go and see what’s up.”
The low sounds proceeded from a dark spot near three hundred yards from the mouth of the cave wherein we have just introduced the renowned Captain Jack to the reader, and the voice was that of Kit South.
Undiscovered, they had found their way—the scout and Artena—to the spot occupied by the former, and the girl spy had boldly proceeded to the lair of the Modoc tiger, for the purpose of luring him thence, that he might be kidnapped after the daring plan they had formed.
Artena, as the reader has heard her aver, was a Modoc.
Prior to the commencement of hostilities between the Indians and the Government, she was unknown to the blue-coated defenders of the latter; but when Donald McKay offered our General the services of his Warm Spring Indians, she came forth, and offered herself as a spy.
Her tribal relations to the Modoc chief was a poor recommendation in the eyes of Canby; but, upon the earnest solicitation of Cohoon, the Warm Spring scout, seconded by McKay, she was installed in the dangerous office of spy, and at once became of great value to the troops.
She persisted in calling herself a Warm Spring Indian, when all knew, from her features, that she was a full-blooded Modoc.
For weeks she had played a dangerous double role. Leaving Jack’s camp at the dead of night for the purpose, as she would tell that worthy, of gaining information concerning the movements of the army, she would find her way to Canby or Gillem’s head-quarters, and open her budget of news about the designs of the Modoc rebel.
It was Artena who proposed the kidnapping of Captain Jack, and this bold movement found a response in the breast of Kit South, who believed that, deprived of their chieftain, the Modocs would not hold out longer.
After a lapse of ten minutes, the scout rose to his feet and glided toward the cave, with whose labyrinths he had been familiar for years.
Artena’s protracted absence boded ill for her safety, and the giant scout proceeded with caution.
“The devils have caught ’Reesa and killed the old woman!” he grated, through clenched teeth, as he crawled over the lava rocks. “I never thought they would strike so high as Lost River; but there’s no telling how far a Modoc will go for a scalp. I’d like to get ’Reesa from ’em to-night, but guess I can’t. So—hello! here’s a hole! Wonder where it leads to?”
The scout had paused at the mouth of a dark corridor which led, seemingly, far into the bowels of the earth.
“Now let me study a minute,” he murmured. “There’s a black hole hyarabouts that leads over the cave where I s’pect Jack is. I’ve crawled it afore, and I ought to tell now whether this is the one or not.”
Then, for several moments, he busied himself with examining the rocks at the mouth of the corridor, when, satisfied that he was on the right trail, he drew his hunting-knife and advanced.
He had gained the inner portal of the black passage, when he became aware that he was followed.
Instantly he paused and listened.
Sure enough, an Indian was creeping after him.
“Curse your red skin,” he hissed, hugging the black wall, as, knife in hand, he awaited the foe. “I’ll settle your hash. A little further, my boy; a little further, if you please.”
Nearer and nearer came the Indian, in the Cimmerian gloom, and all at once the scout’s left hand shot outward, and luckily griped a crimson throat.
But a second later he relaxed the grasp, and whispered a name.
“Cohoon?”
“Kit,” came the reply.
“I knew ye by yer necklace of bear-claws, boy,” continued Kit, in a low tone. “By George! if it hadn’t been fur them, there’d be a dead Indian hereabouts. Where’ve ye been, Cohoon?”
“Spying all ’bout,” answered the savage. “Evan and Cohoon catch Mouseh; but he git ’way. He kick Cohoon ’way down over rocks, and Indian lay there long time.”
Kit South uttered an ejaculation more forcible than polite.
“Where’s Evan now?”
“That’s what Cohoon want to know.”
“You leave him with Jack?”
“Yes.”
“Been back to the place, eh?”
“Yes.”
“Any blood there?”
“No blood.”
“Funny, deuced funny,” said Kit, musingly. “I guess Jack got the best of him. Artena’s got into a fix also, I opine.”
Cohoon started violently, and in the darkness griped the scout’s knife arm.
“Modoc call Artena spy?” he asked.
“Don’t know; fear so,” and then in a low tone Kit narrated the kidnapping plot.
“Mouseh keep Artena for something,” said Cohoon, who appeared to take a great deal of interest in the squaw spy. “Was Kit going to hunt her?”
“Yes.”
“Then come. This black place look down into Mouseh’s cave, by ’m by.”
The route over which white and red crawled was fraught with dangers, for the subterranean portion of the Lava-Beds is honeycombed, and at any moment they were liable to be precipitated into some dark place from which escape might be impossible.
“I guess nobody will ’sturb our hosses,” said the scout. “We left them down by the Black Creek—that is, above the stream, on the bank.”
“Modocs all in caves,” said Cohoon. “If Warm Spring Indians find ’em, let ’em be, for they know who left ’em there.”
“But then— Hold, Cohoon, yonder’s a light, as I live.”
They came to an abrupt halt, and caught the glimmer of light far ahead.
“I can’t hear a word,” whispered the scout, after listening awhile. “Every thing’s as still as death. Mebbe the red devils hev left?”
Cohoon shook his head.
“Mouseh still in cave,” he said. “Crawl on, Kit.”
The scout moved forward again, and at length looked down into the Modocs’ cave.
“Now you red devil-slayer of the best General that ever drew a sword,” hissed the scout, forgetting, for a moment, his present position, errand, peril—every thing.
Captain Jack stood before him!
“I’ll end the Modoc war now. If we can’t kidnap you, by George, we can—”
He had thrust the muzzle of his Spencer through a perforation, and his eye dropped to the sights, when Cohoon’s hand covered the lock.
Kit drew back and looked at the Indian, who did not speak, but shook his head with a faint smile.
The light of the fire penetrating the chamber above the cave, fell upon the faces of the twain, and also upon their surroundings. Slowly Kit dropped the lock, and threw a look of thanks into Cohoon’s face.
Captain Jack was not alone.
Several other Indians occupied the cave. Where were Artena and Evan Harris? They were not to be seen.
Where, too, was ’Reesa South—the scout’s daughter?
It seemed that the Modocs were evacuating the present cave, as Gillem thought they would proceed to do, and that Jack and a few of his trustiest men, were the last to leave the stronghold. The two friends above kept their eyes fastened upon the red rebel, and his chiefs.
“If Artena is a spy, she shall die,” said Jack. “But Mouseh can not believe all that Baltimore Bob says. Artena has told him much about the blue-coats; he must have more proof of her treason than Bob’s voice. What say the chiefs?”
“I believe Baltimore Bob,” said one. “He must know. We have heard where he has been. Boston Charley votes for death.”
“And Hooker Jim?”
“Death to the traitress!”
Jack turned to the other chief—Scar-faced Charley.
There was a slight gleam of hope in his face. He hoped that the last chief would not pronounce for death.
Mechanically Jack turned and struck the lava wall twice with his hatchet.
The tread of many feet followed, and presently a dozen Indians joined the chiefs.
Artena, pinioned by strong red arms, walked in the van of the party, and near her, with his hands fastened to his side, strode Evan Norris, the young ranger, whose prisoner the redoubtable Jack himself had lately been.
The savage known as Baltimore Bob headed the band, and fastened his eyes upon the Modoc chief as he stepped into the light of the fire.
Jack’s gaze fell to the ground.
“Ask the chiefs,” he said, in a low tone. “Mouseh’s heart is sad.”
Bob turned to the trio of Indians, and his look was answered.
“Artena must die,” said Hooker Jim.
“When?”
“Now!”
“And this young white cur?”
“Is not worth talking about. Of course he dies with Artena.”
“Yes, he dies,” said Jack, starting up as if from a prolonged sleep. “Chiefs, do it quickly; then hasten to the deep cave. We must fight the blue-coats to-morrow. Do not torture Artena; but do as you wish with the white man. After all is over, lay her on the water that rushes under the ground.”
The chieftain glanced at the Squaw Spy and then stepped away.
The eye of Kit South followed him, and again the hammer of his trusty gun was gently pulled back.
“It may be my last chance,” he murmured, and the butt of the weapon struck his shoulder.
Cohoon did not see the movement; his fiery eye was regarding the scenes below.
All at once Captain Jack stooped, and Kit South heard him say:
“Too much for White Rose to see. Mouseh take her away.”
As he spoke, the Modoc lifted a girl from the semi-darkened portion of the cavern, and Kit lowered his gun, with a cry of surprise—a cry that startled the savages directly below them.
“’Reesa, by heavens!” he cried. “I never dreamed that that brown heap over yonder was my daughter. ’Reesa—Jack—Jack, drop my gal!”
Cohoon turned upon the scout with rising indignation, and reached forth to prevent the action which he saw was about to be performed.
But he was too late, for, rifle in hand, Kit South had leaped into the cave, and was bounding toward the Modoc chief!
“Give me ’Reesa!” he cried, and the next moment, before Captain Jack could comprehend the situation, the mad scout had snatched his child from his arms, and flung him to the ground!
Then the Indians who had started back when the scout suddenly dropped into their midst, recovered from their surprise, and rushed upon him.
“That’s right! come on!” cried Kit, presenting a revolver, which he thrust into their very faces. “I like to shoot dogs, always did; and here’s a chance perhaps to drop a dozen or so.”
But the foremost savages had paused and were looking fearfully into the muzzle of the leveled weapon.
CHAPTER IV.
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.