THE
Yellow Hunter
THE WINDING TRAIL OF DEATH.

BY CAPT. CHAS. HOWARD.
AUTHOR OF

• No. 50. The Wolf Queen.
• No. 52. The Mad Chief.
• No. 60. Merciless M.
• No. 64. The Island Trapper.
• No. 65. Wolf-Cap.

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

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
FRANK STARR & CO.,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

THE YELLOW HUNTER;
OR,
THE WINDING TRAIL OF DEATH

CHAPTER I.

BESIEGED.

Pontiac, the Ottawa, was dead!

Yes, the fearless originator of the greatest Indian conspiracy on record had received a death-blow at the hands of a fellow red-man, and the promise of a barrel of English rum had nerved the villain’s arm.

The bloody deed was committed in the forest of the Illinois, not far from Cahokia, on the Mississippi, and when the base-hearted Kaskaskia fled to his clansmen, with reeking hatchet, they sided with him, and, without a word in palliation of the crime, drove Pontiac’s followers from the hamlet.

The great Ottawa’s sachems spread over all the country, crying “blood for blood.” They fired many a savage heart with the torch of vengeance, and inaugurated a war whose horrors stand without a parallel on the pages of American history.

From the bays and rivers that relieve the vast dreary western shore of Lake Michigan, rushed the Sacs, Foxes and Menomonies, to assist in the extirpation of the Illinois and the hated English who dwelt in the neighborhood where the conspirator was assassinated. Out from among the stately pines that cover that mighty peninsula between Huron and her western sister, came the intractable Ojibwa, the giant Ottawa, and the proverbially treacherous but brave Pottawatomie; and being joined on the Wabash by the Wyandots, the Miamies, and other more eastern tribes, they swooped down upon the Eden land that bordered the Father of Waters.

Their motto was, ‘Death to the unprotected English and the Illinois Indians, but life to every Frenchman!’

Before the war that followed, all other Indian conflicts sink into utter insignificance, and over the grave of Pontiac more blood was poured out in atonement than flowed from the hecatombs of slaughtered heroes on the corpse of Patroclus:

And through the dark and bloody labyrinths of that era of death, the reader is about to follow the fortunes of red and white—fortunes which pale the cheek and almost turn the blood to ice.

“Father should have been here ere this. He said he would return at sunset. I wonder what keeps him. Surely no danger has befallen him. No, I know he can not be far away, and I will run toward the creek and meet him.”

The speaker was a beautiful girl about eighteen years of age, and, as she uttered the last word, she bounded across the threshold of a low-browed cottage, and hurried toward the south.

She trailed a light rifle at her side, which, with her long, dark hair, and demi-Indian habiliments, gave her a decidedly romantic appearance. A few moments served to bring her to the stream, the Cahokia creek, which debouches into the lordly Mississippi a few miles above the ancient hamlet of like name. Pausing at the water’s edge, she gazed far beyond the ford with anxious eyes.

The evening was a balmy one, in the early part of May, 1769, and the country of the Illinois wore robes of surpassing beauty. While not insensible to the delights of the landscape spread about her, Kate Blount continued to look for her father, who had taken a large bundle of furs to Cahokia, and had promised to return that evening.

Kate was not really fearful for her father’s personal safety, but she knew his failing, and feared that an indulgence might detain him at the frontier station, and compel her to remain in their solitary cabin through a long night alone.

Of late, rumors of an approaching Indian war had reached the settlers in the Illinois, and many had already sought shelter in Cahokia and Fort Chartres. But, Oliver Blount had derided the stories of conflict, and declared that the avenging Indians would strike no one save the Illinois, and their fellow clansmen.

“They’re going to extirpate the Illinois, root and branch,” he would say, “but what have they to do with us? We didn’t kill Pontiac!”

“But, father, English rum drove the tomahawk to the chief’s brain,” Kate had often replied, “and I tell you that more than one British scalp will hang at an Indian’s belt when the carnage begins.”

“Pooh! girl, that’s all talk. You ain’t as old as your father, who has no wish to show the white feather and hide behind Fort Chartres. No! we’ll meet the war here!”

Poor, deluded Oliver Blount! He soon paid dearly for his stubbornness.

Kate felt that the war of extermination was near at hand, and, like a brave woman, prepared for it. During her father’s journey to St. Louis and Cahokia, she molded a store of bullets, and cleaned the little rifle which, a few weeks before the opening of our story, she had accepted from the hands of a young fur-trader, of whom, dear reader, more anon.

“I’m going to stay with father,” she often murmured with determination, “and when he is in danger there will be one hand to save. Oh, I fear he will repent of his rashness when it is too late!”

For many minutes she watched the path leading from the ford; but the well-known form of the loved parent did not greet her eye, and at last, the young girl turned toward her home again.

“Father is tarrying before Kildare’s bottles, I fear,” she muttered, “and I— Hark! he is coming through the wood! He has missed the path.”

Again she turned toward the stream, and a moment later, not her father, but an Indian, burst upon her sight!

Despite the shades now vailing the forest in gloom, she recognized him, when his feet touched the water at the ford.

“Swamp Oak!” she ejaculated, “and he has been chased, too, for I distinctly hear his pantings. Swamp Oak!”

She spoke the Indian’s name in a louder tone, when, with a light cry of recognition he plunged into the water.

A minute brought him to the girl’s side, and he cast his eyes over his shoulder before he allowed her to address him. Then he turned to her with a significant look which told her that the danger was passed, and that he awaited her pleasure.

“Where did the Swamp Oak come from?” questioned Kate Blount, eagerly.

“From the stone-walled fort,” was the quick reply.

The young Peoria could speak good English.

“Did you see my father?”

“No; the white trader’s shadow fell not across Swamp Oak’s trail. He made many a leaf bleed, Lone Dove.”

A faint smile wreathed the boy’s lips as he spoke the last sentence.

“You’ve been tracked, then?” said Kate Blount.

“The Ojibwa wolves were on the Peoria’s trail,” answered the youth; “but he proved too swift for them, and in the great forest they lost him.”

“Then the hatchet has been unearthed?”

“Yes, yes,” cried the Indian. “Between Cahokia and the stone-walled fort the enemies of the Illinois outnumber the leaves of the trees. The Ojibwa has sunk his boat, and now seeks red and white scalps: the—”

“Not white scalps, Swamp Oak?”

“White scalps, Lone Dove! Swamp Oak run by a pale-face’s cabin, and he saw a white maiden dead by the well.”

Kate Blount shuddered and thought of her father.

“Swamp Oak’s people must die!” continued the young chief, sadly; “but they will die like their fathers died. But, Lone Dove, we must not stand here, and for three days Swamp Oak has lived on roots.”

With a last anxious look across the stream, the young woman turned toward her home again, the brave walking at her side.

“I saw him, White Flower,” he said, suddenly.

Kate Blount started at the announcement, and a crimson flush suffused her beautiful cheeks.

“And when is he coming?” she asked, when she regained her composure.

“Even now he is on the way,” was the reply. “He sent Swamp Oak before, and he and the Pale Giant will be here after another sleep.”

“Not before?” asked Kate, with a sigh.

“If they are chased—yes,” answered the Indian.

“Then may they be chased!” she ejaculated, inaudibly, and a moment later the barking of a dog told the twain that they were near the frontier cottage.

I have used the word cottage simply for the reason that the house of Oliver Blount was not a cabin, but in reality a cottage. It was the work of the hands of a former owner—a proud Frenchman, who left the Illinois paradise when the English flag supplanted the fleur de lis, after the peace of 1763; and for a nominal sum Oliver Blount purchased the building, when he reached Cahokia, in the rear of the British army of occupation. The cottage was quite small, but picturesque in the extreme. It contained three rooms, two on the ground floor, and one, a roomy attic, beneath the strong clapboard roof. It boasted of broad eaves, covered with climbers, and a pretty veranda, swarming with flowers, planted in deep wooden bowls.

The young Peoria was not a stranger at the Blounts’ home, for when the giant bulldog saw him he ceased his barkings, and greeted the red-skin with a low, joyful whine. Kate entered the house and began to prepare an evening repast, while the Peoria leaned against the door and swept the landscape before him with his eagle eye. Night had fairly vailed the earth now; but the Indian did not desert his position. His eyes seemed to penetrate the gloom far beyond the threshold, and when he uttered an expressive “ugh,” Kate sprung to him and touched his arm.

“Father?”

“No!” exclaimed Swamp Oak, and the next moment he stepped back and gently closed the strong oaken door.

Then he calmly proceeded to barricade it, Kate watching his movements without a question.

When he deemed the portal proof against the foe, he turned to the windows and secured them in like manner.

“Lone Dove, the wolves prowl about your nest,” he said at last, pausing directly before Kate, “and ere long their steps will greet your ears.”

He had scarcely paused when a footfall approached the house, and fell heavily upon the ashen floor of the veranda. It was greeted by a growl from the dog, who approached the door with all his furious passions aroused, and with fire flashing from his great gray eyes.

The next moment Kate darted forward and quieted Pontiac with her hand, while the Peoria placed his ear at the foot of the portal to catch the import of the whispers on the porch.

All at once, while the Indian still remained crouched on the floor, a hand struck the door, and in a firm tone Kate Blount demanded to know who was there.

“Segowatha, the war-wolf of the Pottawatomies, knocks at the pale-face’s lodge,” was the reply, in a pompous tone. “He is not alone; his warriors are about him, and through him they command the Englishman’s daughter to deliver over to them the Peoria dog, who kennels beneath her roof. We have tracked the Swamp Oak hither, and we seek the scalp of the Peoria dog, and not the Lone Dove’s. Let the pale child be swift to speak, for Segowatha’s warriors are impatient, and soon he can not hold them back from the work of the evil spirit.”

Silence followed the chief’s words. While he spoke, the hunted Peoria had risen to his feet, and now he stood with bowed head before the girl who held his life in her hands. Kate Blount gazed upon the demanded sacrifice, and twice she essayed to speak, but in vain. In the form of the young Peoria she beheld the only true red friend she ever had, and now to deliver him up to the torture seemed to her simple mind the hight of ingratitude.

“Speak, Lone Dove,” suddenly cried Segowatha, and he supplemented the command with a blow from his hatchet. “My warriors are drawing their weapons!”

“Let them draw and use them if they wish,” cried Kate Blount, starling toward the door. “I refuse to deliver the Peoria to his hunters, and more, I shall defend him with my own life.”

A yell of rage burst from the Pottawatomie’s throat, and he drove his tomahawk into the door.

That blow caused Swamp Oak to spring erect as an arrow, and he griped the slender arm of the trader’s daughter.

“Swamp Oak will die for the Lone Dove!” he said, with mingled determination and emotion. “Segowatha is full of lies. They seek the pale girl as well as Swamp Oak, for she is English, and in this war they strike all save the French. A yellow-skinned dog is with Segowatha; he wants the dove with golden plumage; he— Ah! the dog is going to whine.”

The Peoria’s sentence was broken by a voice just beyond the threshold, and the twain grew silent to hear what it might say.

“White girl, you are rash,” said the invisible speaker, in French. “You are selling your life for a dog’s. The Indians don’t want you—only the Peoria lout.”

“No more, Jules Bardue!” cried Kate Blount, with flashing eyes. “I know you; you can’t disguise your hated voice. I know what brought you hither, and death is far preferable to the life you have marked out for me. Depart immediately, base creole dog, else, through this door, a bullet shall stop your whinings.”

A terrible anathema burst from the lips of the maddened creole, and there was a hasty flight from the porch.

“Ha, they run!” cried Kate, turning to the Peoria.

“But they will come again,” was the reply. “The Yellow Chief will have the Lone Dove or die!”

The lips of the trader’s daughter met in terrible determination, and a low whine from Pontiac announced the return of the savages.

A moment later a heavy blow fell upon the door; but the barricades resisted to good effect, and, throwing down the battering-ram, the savages poured a volley of musket-balls through the planks. Suspecting their design, our friends had taken shelter behind the heavy logs that nestled behind the plank weather-boarding, and thus escaped the leaden pellets. Scarcely had the balls perforated the door, when Swamp Oak sprung to his feet and fired through the protection.

A death-yell, similar to the yelp of the wolf, announced the result of his shot, and a moment later Kate Blount’s rifle sent an Ottawa to the hunting-grounds of his tribe.

The lucky shots drew a chorus of demoniac yells from the savages, and while the brave twain reloaded their weapons, those outside rushed in a body against the door.

The first blow with the sapling which they had deserted a moment before, sent a shiver over the structure, and the second stroke drove the faithful door from its hinges!

The ram was handled by demons now, and nothing could resist their fury.

The broken barricades prevented the door from falling to the floor, but the moonlight streamed into the room, and revealed the defenders to the Indians. Simultaneously with their success, they essayed to enter over the stricken portals, but the rifles of the besieged cracked again, and two more Indians fell dead on the porch.

The death-work momentarily drove the foe from the door, and before they returned to their work, Swamp Oak had torn the useless barricades away, and supplied their places with new ones. A settler’s cabin is always supplied with two sets of barricades, and in case of an attack the extra set is placed beside the door.

When the enemy returned to the attack, they greeted the new defense with wild yells, and the renewal of the attack was met with a volley from the besieged which sorely wounded no less a personage than Segowatha.

In tones of rage and pain the stricken Pottawatomie ordered his braves from the attack, and for many minutes silence reigned beyond the fort.

“They are concocting something devilish,” whispered the young girl.

“Yes, the evil spirit is playing with their hearts,” said Swamp Oak.

A moment later, they heard the voice of the Yellow Chief.

“You had better surrender; the Indians are mad now,” he said.

“Let them eat themselves for rage,” cried Kate Blount, heroically. “We will not surrender.”

“Then die!” yelled Jules Bardue.

A moment later innumerable sticks were hurled upon the porch.

In the moonlight that stole into the room through a crevice above the window, the eyes of the red brave and white girl met.

“They’re going to burn us out!” said Kate.

The Peoria nodded assent, griped his rifle more firmly than ever, and stepped to the door.

The next instant the clash of flints greeted his ears. Kate heard it, too.

CHAPTER II.

DEATH’S DOINGS.

The brushwood which the Indians heaped against the door of Oliver Blount’s home, had been gathered on the edge of the clearing and was quite dry. The bark films were soon ignited by the flints, and in less time than we can record a single sentence, the little boughs were cracking in the ruddy blaze.

Segowatha, who, on account of his wound, lay at the foot of a tree some distance from the cottage, commanded his braves to draw back from the scene, and with a single exception they obeyed. That exception was Jules Bardue, the Yellow Chief, as he had been termed for several years. He had suddenly disappeared, though Segowatha made no inquiries regarding his absence, nor manifested any uneasiness about it.

The creole was a privileged character among the north-western Indians. He had not always dwelt among the tribes of the Illinois country. He had been an attache to Sir William Johnson’s estate in New York, and amid its beauties he first encountered the girl he now sought—Catherine Blount. Then she was a pretty little blonde of fifteen, and he a manly-looking fellow of one and twenty. He threw himself before Miss Kate whenever an opportunity presented, and when he discovered that the beauty did not love him—when, in indignant tones, she bade him remain from her side, he obeyed the instincts of a bad heart and grossly insulted her.

As young as she was—a mere child in years—Kate Blount had imbibed to no little degree her father’s resentful nature, and it was with great difficulty that the creole wrenched from her the pistol which had flashed from her bosom to avenge the insult he had offered.

To what violence his passion might have led we can only guess, for from among the shadows of the forest trees a veritable giant sprung upon him; strong arms encircled him, and, before he could think with calmness, he found himself stripped and bound to a tree. Kate Blount had suddenly disappeared, and before him stood her irate father, armed with a bundle of switches. Jules Bardue did not beg for mercy; he was not that kind of a man. On the contrary he gritted his teeth until sixty terrible blows had stripped the flesh from his back, and he was unbound and hurled almost senseless to the ground.

The next morning the creole, or Frenchman as he was called by many, did not make his appearance at Sir William’s lodge; nor was he ever seen near it again. He feared the wrath of Oliver Blount, and had left the country for his own and the country’s good.

He fled to the new Illinois; lived at Cahokia awhile, then joined the Pottawatomies, and became their Yellow Chief. He knew that Oliver Blount intended to emigrate to the Illinois country sometime, and the Yellow Chief’s frequent incursions into that Paradise told that he watched and waited for father and daughter—for his revenge.

Fully thirty paces from trader Blount’s cottage the Indians watched the progress of their devilish work, and when they beheld the flames licking up the door with their forked tongues, they exchanged “ughs” of supreme satisfaction. The besieged would not permit themselves to be roasted to death, and every minute the dusky demons expected to hear the submissive cry. A cordon of braves encircled the cottage thus cutting off the retreat of the doomed ones.

But while this was transpiring, a merciful Providence was interposing a saving hand, for a suddenly-gathered storm-cloud burst over the cottage; the gates of the upper deep opened, and threatened to deluge every thing.

The superstitious Indians, surprised and alarmed at this sudden burst of lightning and rain, left their stations and gathered around the wounded chief.

Despite his wounds, Segowatha sprung to his feet.

“Back to your places, braves!” he yelled, facing the shrinking savages with drawn tomahawk. “The Manitou merely waters the earth, and he will smile soon.”

Sullenly the warriors returned to their posts, and again the cottage was encircled by the tomahawk and scalping-knife.

The drenching rain, driven in upon the porch by the wind, effectually extinguished the flames; and when the storm at last had subsided, an Indian approached the house, to discover a door so charred that it must yield to a slight assault.

Not a sound proceeded from the cottage, and the Indians, who now crept forward like snakes to the attack, wondered at the silence. When they reached the foot of the porch they rose in a body and threw themselves against the door.

It made no resistance, and the savages, with horrible yells, rushed pell-mell into the cottage. Beyond the portal they met a determined resistance, but it was from a dog. With an almost human yell, Pontiac darted at the foremost Indian’s throat, and dragged the torn wretch to the floor. The entire band sprung upon the dog, and a minute later he was literally hacked to pieces with their knives.

Where were Kate Blount and the hunted Peoria?

The savages rushed into the second chamber; but it was tenantless. The ladder which was wont to invite ingress to the attic was missing, and with some difficulty the red demons gained the upper story. A moment later a yell of mingled rage and disappointment pealed from their throats, and while it echoed throughout the gloomy recesses of the drenched forest, they congregated beneath an opening in the roof, and gazed bewildered at the stars which seem to laugh at their defeat.

The birds had flown!

Segowatha greeted this announcement with a groan of rage, and in angry tones he summoned the rear guards into his presence. Tremblingly they approached, and told him that while they guarded the house, the twain had not escaped.

“But while you acted like squaws they crept from the lodge,” cried the War Wolf with terrific mien. “I will have no such braves with me!”

As he spoke he buried his hatchet in the brain of the foremost guard, and turned with murderous intention upon the second. But, his strength failed him; the weapon dropped from his hand, and a sub-chief supported him with his arms.

“Shall we throw ourselves upon the snake’s trail?”

“No, no!” said Segowatha, his face suddenly growing pale, and a convulsive shudder passing over his giant frame. “The War Wolf must go to his people; the Peoria’s bullet struck deep. Segowatha is near the dark river. But give the snake’s den to the fire, and call the Yellow Chief back.”

With the bare thought of their war-chief’s approaching end, the savages gave themselves over to a rage which knew no bounds, and defies description.

They flew to the work of destruction; they ripped the weather boarding from the cottage, and split it with their hatchets, piling it in the lower rooms. Presently the flints were applied again, and soon Oliver Blount’s home was wrapped in flames. While the tongues of fire licked up the toil of years, a chief repeated the shrill cry of the night-hawk three times in rapid succession. Then they waited anxiously for the coming of some one, but, whoever that one was, he did not come.

The demons danced about the trader’s burning home; they tore down the neat fence that surrounded it, and cast it into the fire; they applied their hatchets to the beautiful silver maples which afforded delicious shade, and gave them to the devouring element. In short, they spared nothing, even tearing up the broad stones which led to the well, and hurling them with terrible yells after the trees.

At last the cottage was destroyed, and, ready for more hellish work, the Indians turned to Segowatha for orders. The dying chief, for it was plain that he was approaching the river of death, smiled upon their work and inquired regarding the creole.

“He comes not,” answered a young chief—the Lone Wolf, “like a cowardly dog he has deserted us. We will whip him with canes when he sneaks back to our lodges.”

“The Yellow Chief went to watch the spot where the fur-trader keeps his boat,” said Segowatha. “But Segowatha can not dream why he comes not. He must have heard the hawk cry.”

“He may have filled his ears with leaves,” said Lone Wolf, who, though a Pottawatomie, bore no good thoughts for Jules Bardue. “He watches yet, perhaps. We will hunt the dog.”

Touching a warrior’s arm lightly, the young Indian bounded toward Cahokia Creek, followed by the red-skin whom his touch had summoned.

A path led from the cottage to the creek, which almost encircled it, and the two Indians were not long in reaching the stream. Suddenly Lone Wolf’s companion uttered an “ugh” expressive of horror, and dropped before a dark object which lay near the water.

“The Yellow Chief!” exclaimed Lone Wolf.

A brief examination proved the creole to be still living, and just recovering from the deathly swoon into which a terrible blow had hurled him.

A glance about the star-lit spot showed evidences of a fierce struggle, and the missing boat told the result of the combat.

The Indians lifted the Yellow Chief and bore him to Segowatha.

The War Wolf raised himself on his elbow, and for a long time looked down into the creole’s face without speaking.

“Segowatha leads the red-men of the big lake no more,” he said, at last, in the calmest of tones, which the Indian loves to assume when he stands upon the threshold of death. “The Manitou grips his hand now, and the War Wolf must go. Warriors—Pottawatomies, Ojibwas,” his eyes swept the circle of tawny faces, “who followed Segowatha hither, you must swear.”

In the momentary pause that followed, thirty hatchets flew aloft, and thirty hands covered the hearts of their respective owners.

“Swear!” cried the dying War Wolf—“swear to hunt to earth the Peoria skunk and the white house-snake who crawls after him. Swear to tear the hearts from all whom she loves—her bearded father, the Pale Giant, and the boy with long hair. Segowatha hates them all!”

“We swear!” cried Lone Wolf. “Warriors, by our chieftain’s blood we swear all this.”

With the last word the young brave dyed his hands in the warm blood that gushed afresh from Segowatha’s wounds, and the other red-skins followed his example.

“I swear, too!” unexpectedly cried a voice in French, and, raising himself with a mighty effort, the Yellow Chief thrust his hand into Segowatha’s blood. “Ha! ha! we will hunt them down—the fugitives of the Illinois! Oh, that they were here now!”

Exhaustion then again followed, and he dropped to the ground, and a moment later a terrific yell, uttered simultaneously by thirty pair of lips, told that the mighty War Wolf of the Pottawatomies had stepped into the impenetrable future.

Over Segowatha’s corpse an Ojibwa dropped with a groan, and two others staggered to their feet to fall to the earth, a second later, wounded to the death.

The uninjured red-skins griped their rifles; but not a foe was to be seen. Everywhere the silence of death reigned supreme!

CHAPTER III.

A MOTHER’S VENGEANCE.

From a trap-door in the roof of the cottage, Swamp Oak, the young Peoria, had noted the approach of the delivering storm, and had hastened to communicate the joyful tidings to his beautiful fellow-prisoner. Well understanding the nature of the summer storms which broke over the forests of the Illinois, they were alert at once, and when the cloud did discharge its fury of wind and rain through the Stygian darkness, they were in the attic, and by the flashes of lightning, saw the awe-stricken guards desert their posts, just as the Peoria knew they would do.

The young red-skin then glided away to the edge of the broad eaves, followed by the girl, whom he lowered to the ground. Handing her the rifles, he sprung down. Then toward the trader’s boat the fugitives of the Illinois hurried.

Suddenly, when they were very near the creek, the Peoria paused, and griped Kate Blount’s arm.

“What is it, Swamp Oak?” questioned the girl, in a low whisper.

“The Yellow Chief,” was the reply, and then the Indian left her standing alone.

A flash of lightning had revealed to Swamp Oak the figure of the creole chief watching the boat, as though he were certain that the besieged would escape, in which event they would, of course, seek the boat.

Several minutes of silence followed the Peoria’s departure, and then the sounds of a desperate struggle were borne to the girl’s ears. In the gloom she stood and trembled for the safety of her ally, and when at last the lightning revealed the two men locked in each other’s arms, writhing and twisting like two panthers on the verge of Cahokia Creek, she sprung forward to put an end to the conflict. The electric light had told her that the Yellow Chief was uppermost, and Swamp Oak’s situation critical in the extreme.

A few bounds brought her to the spot; her rifle flew above her head to deal a death-blow to the coward who sought to destroy her happiness, when she saw him roll from the Indian and lie perfectly still on the bank.

“Ugh!” grunted the victorious Peoria, springing to his feet, and shaking himself after the manner of a dog emerging from the water. “The Yellow Chief is as strong as the buffalo; but he was no match for Swamp Oak.

“Come!” he said, stepping to the water, “we must fly, even as the wild geese fly from the gun of the white hunters.”

“But father and the others?” said Kate, involuntarily pausing beside the boat.

“They will come to the Lone Dove in time,” said the Swamp Oak; “she will nestle in her father’s bosom soon, and she will plait the young trader’s long hair before the death of another moon. Come!”

Thus reassured, Kate Blount stepped into the boat, and the next moment they were flying toward the head-waters of Cahokia creek.

“Why did you not fly to the fort, chief?” asked Kate, after a lengthy silence.

“The Red Avengers were between the fur man’s cabin and the English flag; and we must keep from them. Oh, my poor people!” and a sigh escaped the Indian’s breast. “Swamp Oak’s father is old; the evil spirits’ fiery arrows shoot along his bones, and like the wounded dove, he will fall an easy prey to the bad Indians’ tomahawks. But let them kill him,” and the young brave gritted his teeth; “yes, let them kill the old Peoria, and they shall unchain a devil fiercer than all the wolves in the country of the Illinois.”

Then the savage relapsed into silence, which was not broken till, an hour later, he ran the canoe to the secure cover of the fringed bank.

“Now where do we go, Swamp Oak?” demanded Kate, as they stepped upon the bank.

“The Lone Dove shall see,” answered the Indian, with a smile. “Did she never know that Swamp Oak had a squaw?”

“No, chief,” said the girl, in astonishment. “You never breathed a word to me about a Mrs. Swamp Oak.”

The youthful Indian smiled sadly, but proudly, and, having sunk the boat, led the way into the forest.

“Yes,” he said, in low tones, while he guided the trader’s daughter over the rough ground, “the Peoria has a squaw, as beautiful as the lilies of snow that kiss the lips of the great river (Mississippi). Many moons ago, Swamp Oak’s nation sent him to the lands of the Delawares to spy. He went with a fearless heart, for he wanted to win his first feathers. He wore the plumes and paint of an Ojibwa; he entered the lodges of the Delawares; he told them about the great lake where the Ojibwas live, and they believed him, for the Manitou closed their eyes to the fact that Swamp Oak was an Illinois.[1] Among the Delaware wigwams he met Ulalah, the daughter of Colealah, the gigantic Delaware prophetess, who wears a necklace of living snakes. He loved her star eyes, and when he left the Delawares, Ulalah walked at his side. He dared not take her to his people as his squaw—she a hated and accursed Delaware, so he brought her—here!”

The young white girl looked up into the Indian’s face, bewildered.

“Not here, Swamp Oak?”

“Here, Lone Dove.”

As the savage finished, he stooped and placed his ear to the ground. In this position he remained for some time, when, satisfied with his vigil, he stepped to a gigantic oak and thrust his arm into a dark aperture in its side.

Kate Blount watched him eagerly.

When Swamp Oak withdrew his arm, a portion of the tree swung open like a door, which unexpected action drew a cry of astonishment from the girl’s lips.

“So Swamp Oak and his squaw live in a tree?” she said, smiling at the novelty of the thought.

“No,” murmured the Indian, “they dwell below the tree. Come!”

He caught Kate’s arm and led her beyond the living threshold of his strange home; and she stood against the inner wall of the tree, while he closed the door and made it secure again.

Then he gently assisted her down a ladder formed of poles and sinews, and at last Kate found herself upon firm, stony ground, thirty feet below the roots of the tree.

In the gloom the Peoria paused, and a loud bird-call pealed from his lips.

It received no answer. He called again, and in the suspense that followed the cry, Kate felt a shudder flit over the red-skin’s tawny frame.

“Ulalah must sleep,” said Swamp Oak, in a tone full of uncertainty and fears. “Swamp Oak has not kissed her for ten sleeps, and she has grown weary waiting for him. We will awake her, Lone Dove. Come!”

The hand that stole to Kate Blount’s in the gloom trembled like the aspen, and a terrible presentiment of evil crept to her young heart. She could not shake the terror off, and she knew that Swamp Oak shared it with her.

“Ha!” suddenly exclaimed the Indian, in a somewhat joyous tone, “Ulalah still keeps the fire bright for Swamp Oak.”

He quickened his gait now, and presently the turning of a curve brought them into an apartment quite vividly relieved by a fire that burned in the center.

The chamber was fit for the banquet hall of an eastern king, and the trader’s daughter was struck with rapture and awe when her eyes fell upon the myriads of shining stalactites that hung pendent from the arched ceiling, and the walls that reflected back, with ten thousand beauties, the glow of the fire.

At first she thought the palace deserted; but when her eyes became accustomed to the light, she, simultaneously with the Peoria, beheld a figure upon a mat of doe skins, near the bright blaze.

With a light cry of “Ulalah!” Swamp Oak shot forward, and stooped, with his inborn gentleness, over the motionless body of his young wife.

But the next moment he started back with a cry that drove every vestige of color from Kate Blount’s face, and, with the eyes of a madman, he stared at the form on the doe-skins.

The trader’s daughter could not move. Horror glued her to the spot, and her eyes continually flitted between the mad Peoria and his Ulalah.

Suddenly Swamp Oak shot forward, and lifted the Delaware girl from the couch, and then without a word bore her to the trader’s child, and thrust the cold, expressionless face into hers.

“Dead! dead!” welled from Kate’s lips, in horrible accents, and while she spoke she could scarcely believe that the beautiful being embraced by the Indian was a corpse.

“Dead! dead!” shrieked Swamp Oak echoing the girl’s words with a voice that was a wail; and while the accents still quivered on his pale lips, he staggered back and dropped Ulalah upon the couch again.

“He’s mad!” muttered Kate Blount, involuntarily shrinking from the intense glare of the frenzied Indian’s eyes. “This deed of blood has sent reason from its throne. What is to follow God knows. Heaven protect me!”

The Peoria approached with an unnatural smile.

“Yes, the good spirits have taken Ulalah to their lodges,” he said, “and left the Lone Dove to be poor Swamp Oak’s squaw. Swamp Oak loved Ulalah; but when the winged spirits came for her, he kissed her, and let her go. Ha! ha! ha! the Lone Dove will be lone no longer. Why does she not greet the Swamp Oak? Come, we’ll strew the bridal-couch with flowers.”

But, with a shudder, Kate continued to retreat, and when at last, unable to retreat further, the demented Indian’s hand griped her arm, a fiendishly triumphant laugh came from a distant portion of the cave.

Instantly Swamp Oak dropped her arm, and wheeled with a crazy cry.

He turned in time to see a giantess burst from one of the corridors, leading from the further end of the chamber, and Kate Blount echoed the Indian’s cry of horror.

She at once recognized in the red ogress, the person of Coleola the prophetess of the Delawares, for around her neck writhed three snakes, pictures of horror.

Several warriors followed the red queen, and she threw a furtive glance upon Ulalah’s corpse as she sprung forward.

“Ha! ha! ha!” she laughed again, more discordantly than ever, pausing within a few feet of Swamp Oak, who regarded her with an expression utterly indescribable. “At last Coleola has tracked the child-stealer to his den. At last she has found her child—found her to punish her for following the Peoria dog into the woods. See!” and a knife flashed from beneath her tunic, “this blade is red with the blood of the ungrateful girl, and soon it shall drink the heart-gore of the red hound. For five sleeps we have waited for Swamp Oak, the traitor. Coleola led her braves from the Delaware village, saying: ‘We dye our knives in the hearts of the runaways or never return.’ Ha! ha! in the forest we saw a pair of eyes peeping from a tree! Ulalah watched for her red dog, and Coleola came instead of he.”

Again that hellish laugh broke from the murderess’ lips, and with eyes aflame with passion, she strode toward Swamp Oak, who did not seem to comprehend her intention. Kate Blount, still griping her rifle, shrunk nearer the wall, determined to brace herself against it, and sell her life as dearly as possible. While Coleola addressed Swamp Oak, her eyes had wandered to her, and Kate knew that she was doomed to die by some terrible mode of death.

Nearer and nearer the dazed Indian came the murderess, and her almost naked followers; when to Kate Blount’s surprise, Swamp Oak, with a terrific yell, dashed Coleola and her braves from his path as though they were stalks of corn; and, snatching up the corpse of his stolen wife, he disappeared in one of the corridors before the astonished spectators had recovered from their confusion.

Coleola and her followers darted after the madman, and Kate Blount was left alone. Then, with the instinct of self-preservation, she retreated back through the passage which a few minutes since she had traversed, and at last found herself in the tree. Around her all was gloom, and she fumbled about for the fastenings with the wildest heart that ever throbbed in maiden’s bosom.

Every moment was precious to her, and when she at last found the sinews and threw wide the door, she felt a foot on the ladder below!

She sprung from the tree into the day that was penetrating the Illinois forest, and heard the triumphant yell of the Indian behind her.

Impelled by her danger, she turned and beheld, rushing from the tree with uplifted hatchet, one of Coleola’s braves.

Instantly her rifle shot to her shoulder; she touched the trigger and the Delaware lay motionless on the leaves with a bullet in his brain!

Again, with a prayer to God for safety, the fugitive turned and rushed toward Cahokia Creek, loading her faithful rifle as she ran.

From childhood the trader’s daughter handled the weapons of the frontier, and about Sir William Johnson’s “lodge” there used to be no deadlier shot than the then little girl of fifteen!

In her hands the rifle was a dangerous thing!

[1] The Kaskaskias, Peorias and Cahokias were component tribes of the Illinois nation.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HAUNTED TRADER.

“Shall we give the red-livered dogs another volley?”

The questioner was a youth, apparently twenty years of age, and the looks which he threw upon the startled Indians was burdened with the consuming fire of hatred.

“No, Rob,” was the whispered rejoiner of a herculean man who lay behind the log at the young scout’s side. “Another volley would bring the hull ov the red devils down upon us before we could reload, an’ then thar’d be the very Old Harry to pay. They’ll not hunt for us as it is; they’re pickin’ up their dead now, an’ ar’ goin’ to break fur Cahokia. Wonder who dropped Segowatha?”

“And I wonder where my daughter—my Kate—is?”

It was Oliver Blount that spoke, and his face told of the fearful anxiety and doubting that gnawed at his heart. He was enduring the greatest anguish that can assail a father’s breast for the fate of his only child.

“The Lord only knows where she is, Oll,” responded the giant, in a sympathizing tone; “and, b’lieve me, He’s goin’ to take care o’ her until you see her again.”

A ray of hope lighted up Blount’s eyes, and he grasped Doc Bell’s hand.

“Then you think her living, Doc?”

“Why, in course she’s alive,” said the hunter and Indian-fighter, confidently. “Ef them red devils had cotched her, why she’d be with ’em now; but, you see, the only live thing they found in yer house war Pontiac, an’ I’ll bet my rifle that he let out some red hound’s blood afore he yelped fur the last time. Ha! jest as I told ye; they’re goin’.”

A smile played with the giant’s face as he saw the savages lift their dead from the ground, and move toward Cahokia Creek.

“Look yonder!” suddenly exclaimed Oliver Blount, his eyes riveted upon the Yellow Chief, who, with the assistance of two Miamis, regained his feet. “I know who the Yellow Chief is now—Jules Bardue.”

“That’s jest his name!” said Bell, “an’ a devil he is, too. Yer daughter did good work to-night, Oll, but she ought to hev finished the Creole.”

“But he will die,” said Rob Somerville, the young scout. “Look at his face; death is riding over it now.”

“No, he ain’t, boy,” said the giant. “To kill Jules Bardue you must send a bullet to his brain. I’ll never forget the night, near two years ago, when I met him near the ’Wattomie town, and hacked him to pieces with my knife. I made that scar over his left eye; I cut the thumb from his left hand, an’ four times I drove my blade between the scoundrel’s ribs. I left him for dead. I piled brush over ’im, an’ ran like oiled lightnin’. But as I live! a month arterwards I saw the Yellow Chief on Lake Michigan. Somehow or other he had come to life, an’ doctored himself up in the latest style. But, boys, the next time I’ll finish ’im; thar’s no remedy, you know, fur a bullet in the brain.”

When the hunter concluded, the savages were beyond sight, and after scouring the woods to see that none remained behind, the trio approached the blasted sight of Oliver Blount’s home.

“They shall pay for this!” hissed the fur-trader, through clenched teeth, and then he stopped before a ghastly object—the body of his faithful dog.

While he bent over it, stroking the bloody hair with the air and look of a grief-stricken man, the giant and his youthful protege returned from a scout around the cottage.

“Yer daughter is safe, Oll,” said Bell.

The trader started at the sound of the voice, for the two men had stolen up behind him.

“How do you know she’s safe?” he demanded.

“Because your boat is gone, an’ she an’ that young Peoria ar’ in it.”

“Gone down Cahokia right into the jaws of death.”

“Not much. Swamp Oak ain’t a durned fool if he is young. He’s gone up Cahokia, to his mysterious home.”

“Do you know where it is?” and Oliver Blount griped the hunter’s arm in his eagerness.

“Not exactly, but I kin tramp mighty nigh it. Ye see, that young red chap stole his wife, an’ he won’t tell anybody whar he keeps her. But we’ll hunt for the place, an’ we’ll begin right away. I’d give any thing fur a boat now.”

But no canoe was to be had, and the trio were obliged to set out on the hunt for Kate Blount on foot.

They had arrived too late to attack the Indians while they besieged the devoted pair in the cottage; but they reached the spot from whence they slew the three red-men in time to hear the oath which Segowatha imposed upon his followers.

Doc Bell and young Somerville had lately left Fort Chartres for the purpose of conducting the Blount family to a place of safety, or to defend them should the father still persist in his refusal to move. To warn the trader of his danger, and to tell him that they would soon be with him, they had dispatched Swamp Oak, the Peoria, before them; and, as the reader has seen, the Indian reached the doomed cottage in time to render valuable assistance to its beautiful tenant.

A short distance from Fort Chartres the twain encountered Indians, and accidentally ran across a young Delaware brave, with whom a meeting, in his own country, some years prior to the date of our romance, had placed Bell on friendly terms. The Delaware told them of the presence of the avengers; that that night the blow was to be struck, and that the home of every backwoods English settler would be in ashes before dawn.

This startling intelligence impelled our two friends forward faster than ever, and when they struck the trail leading from Cahokia to the trader’s house, they encountered Oliver flying to the protection of his loved daughter. He had been detained in Cahokia beyond his time, and he had much to relate about the bursting of the storm of massacre. His path had been illuminated by the light of happy homes, and he had had several narrow escapes while on his homeward journey.

From the destroyed cottage the trio proceeded to the scene of the struggle between Swamp Oak and the Yellow Chief; and, with Doc Bell in advance, struck up the creek.

“I tell you what,” said the giant, “we’re in an uncommon delicate pickle jest now. Thar’s a wall ov red meat all around us, an’ unless we kin break through it, the circle will narrow down to a point so fine as to be extremely disagreeable.”

“But, with Kate, we’re going to break through it!” said Blount, with determination.

“That’s jest what’s the matter,” responded the hunter. “The red devils may surround me in a ten-acre woods, an’ ef I don’t get out all right, they may marry me to the ugliest squaw they’ve got. Bob an’ me’s been in tight places afore.”

“And so have I,” said Blount; “and we’re going to get out of this. But we’ll be hunted like deers. When the Red Avengers deliver Segowatha to the rest of the tribe, they’ll return and hunt us down.”

“You’re right thar, Blount, an’ ef they catch any ov us they’ll sarve us like they sarved poor John Senior, on the shores of Huron.”

“How was that?” asked Blount.

“They made him eat his ears, an’ then, with dull knives, they skinned him alive.”

Despite his manhood, Oliver Blount shuddered.

“I saw that done,” continued Bell, “an’ the hellion who proposed it swore this night to hunt us down.”

“I know who you mean—Jules Bardue.”

“Yes, it was he.”

The thought of ‘Jack’ Senior’s fate, and their own peril caused the trio to drop the unpalatable conversation, and for a long time they skirted the shores of Cahokia creek in silence. Far above them the stars twinkled with a dimmed luster, as if they were sorrowing for the work falling from the hands of the demon Devastation, stalking over the Eden land of the Illinois.

Oliver Blount walked along with bowed head—repenting, when too late, of his stubbornness. Had he listened to reason at that hour he and his daughter might have been safe behind the protecting walls of Fort Chartres; but now she was a fugitive from Indian vengeance, and he rushing to death in the attempt to save her young life. He trusted to his more watchful companions to warn him of the presence of foes, and suddenly that warning came in the click of their rifles.

“What is it?” he asked in a whisper.

“Down!” returned the giant.

They crouched in the weeds that lined the bank of the little stream, and the footsteps of a single person approached them from the recesses of the forest.

“He’s making for the creek,” whispered Somerville. “If an Indian, we’ll finish him.”

“It’s a pale-face,” said Bell. “Listen again, Bob. Does he run like an Injun?”

The young man did not reply, and presently the new-comer crossed an open spot in which the trio caught a glimpse of his figure. He was a tall man, clad in the garb of the English fur trader, and bore a long rifle at his side. His haggard face told of a terror-stricken heart; and it was not difficult for the trio to tell that he was flying from the blood-dyed tomahawk of Pontiac’s avengers.

He paused on the bank of the stream, and resting his sharply defined chin upon his shoulder, listened for the footsteps of his pursuers.

The three hunters could almost have touched him with their gun-barrels.

They watched him narrowly, and when he seemed about to plunge into the stream, and break his trail by water, Doc Bell spoke:

“Williamson?”

The hunted man started, and a low cry of despair parted his ashen lips. Our friends heard the click, click of his long weapon, and his fiery, blood-shot eyes seemed to pierce their covert.

“Come on!” he hissed. “John Williamson never surrenders. For three weeks I’ve been the most wretched man on earth. Awake or asleep, I’ve been hunted by the ghost of that mighty chief whose life I purchased for a barrel of rum. I want to die, and now come on, and let me take to Hades with me a dozen red demons.”

“We don’t want your life, John Williamson, though I could take it without a guilty conscience,” said Oliver Blount, who recognized the man who had precipitated the bloody war upon the country, by compassing the death of the great conspirator, Pontiac.

The haunted trader recognized Blount’s voice, and a moment later he stood before the three men.

“Will you not save me?” he pleaded, suddenly discovering that he was not so eager to die as he seemed to be a moment since.

“I thought you wanted to die!” said the giant with a sneer. “Williamson, you deserve to perish like a dog—you the devil whose hate of a noble Injun is deluging the Illinois in innocent blood. But they’ll catch you yet, an’ then you’ll experience what Jack Senior did.”

The terrible doom of Senior was known throughout the length and breadth of the Illinois country.

“No, no,” groaned Williamson, his knees smiting one another. “I’ll cut my throat first.”

“They’ll never give you that chance,” put in Somerville, who smiled to see the terror of the justly haunted wretch.

“We’re huntin’ a gal—Kate Blount,” said Doc Bell, addressing the cowardly trader, “an’ we’ll take you with us if you promise to behave decently.”

“I’ll do that,” was the response, “and, sirs, I’ll fight like a lion, when it comes to that.”

“Well, it’s coming to that,” said the giant, “and then—”

“Hark!” whispered the youth, clutching his companion’s arm.

The quartette listened, and heard footsteps in the forest.

“The Illinois is full of fiends,” whispered Blount.

“And they’re coming up the creek!” groaned the haunted trader, audibly.

“Speak above a whisper again, John Williamson, an’ I’ll toss you into the red-skins’ arms,” said the giant, as he laid his hand upon the trader’s shoulder.

The sounds increased, and indicated the approach of a large body of Indians. They were advancing up the opposite side of the stream, and to our friends’ surprise halted almost directly opposite their covert.

The starlight enabled our friends to arrive at their number, and they concluded that they were advancing against a somewhat exposed village of the Peorias not many miles distant. Immediately after kindling a fire, which they did upon halting, the chiefs came together for counsel, and Oliver Blount and the two hunters watched them with anxiety and interest. They dared not move, for the least movement might reach their enemies’ ears, and, in a moment, two hundred avengers would be upon them.

Therefore, they resolved to remain where they were until the conclusion of the council, which they knew would transpire before dawn.

Wearied with his long tramp—tired of flying, no doubt, from an imaginary foe, the haunted trader dropped into a fitful slumber, while his companions watched the council.

Suddenly they were startled by a most unearthly cry.

“Avaunt! avaunt! I didn’t kill Pontiac! Hellions, away! away!”