CHAPTER XII.

THE TREE-LADDER.

Smoholler turned to Oneotah.

“Give me two amulets,” he said.

The Antelope boy took two little pouches, made of skin, and richly trimmed with beads, from a kind of large pocket that he wore suspended from a belt around his waist. These were attached to strings made of different-colored strips of doe-skin twisted together. Smoholler gave one to each of the boys.

“Wear these,” he said. “They are marked with my totem, and I have charmed them. They are amulets of great power, and they will preserve you from harm. No Indian who knows Smoholler’s sign will raise his hand against the wearer of his amulet.”

“I thank you for the gift,” returned Percy Vere, “and shall always treasure it as the memento of a wonderful man.”

“And so shall I,” cried Cute. “This will be more efficacious in preserving my top-knot than Professor Ike’s Restorative, I’m thinking. Now, how shall we get back to camp? Roll a log into the river and float down upon it, or go back the way we came?”

“There is a trail along the cliff,” said Smoholler. “Oneotah will guide you a part of the way. Remember, return this evening, and I will show you a proof of my magical power that will astonish you.”

The boys promised to do so, shook hands cordially with the Prophet, notwithstanding his hideous war-paint, and followed Oneotah, who bounded lightly on before.

The way was a rough one, and they had some difficulty in keeping up with Oneotah, who sprung over the bowlders and fallen trees in the path with the nimbleness of a goat.

A toilsome tramp of an hour brought them to a beetling crag that jutted into the water, and appeared to bar all further progress in that direction. Here Oneotah paused, and the boys joined him, panting and breathless.

“Phew! how are we going to get over that?” cried Cute; surveying the impediment in dismay.

Oneotah pointed to a tall spruce tree that grew beside the crag.

“Climb this,” he said, “and from its branches you can reach the top of the rock.”

“Show! I should never have thought of that.”

“Beyond it lies your camp. The descent upon the other side is easy. You can climb?”

“You had better believe it—like a monkey! Good-by, Antelope. Shake hands before we slope.”

Oneotah extended his hand cordially, but he winced a little under the vigorous grasp that Percy Cute bestowed upon him, for the fat hands of the boy had quite a degree of strength in them. Cute laughed as Oneotah quickly released his fingers from the roguish squeeze, uttering a suppressed “O—h!”

“Did I hurt you?” asked Cute, with well-assumed innocence.

Oneotah shook his fingers, as if to restore the circulation of the blood in them, by way of answer.

“Don’t mind him,” cried Percy Vere. “He’s always at his tricks. You leave us here?”

“Yes. When you reach the top of this rock you will see your camp.”

“Good-by.”

Percy extended his hand, but Oneotah hesitated to accept it. Percy laughed.

“Have no fear,” he said. “I will not serve you as he did.”

Oneotah placed his hand in Percy’s, who uttered an exclamation of surprise as he received it.

“No wonder he hurt you,” he cried; “why your hand is as soft as a girl’s.”

Oneotah withdrew his hand quickly.

“I must return to Smoholler,” he said. “Come back, and he will show you the Black Spirit and the White. Farewell!”

With these words, he bounded swiftly away, and was soon lost to sight among the trees.

“No wonder he is called the Antelope!” exclaimed Percy Vere, as he gazed after him; “for he is as fleet as one.”

“But he ought not be called the Antelope,” rejoined Cute.

This difference of opinion, so unusual in friend and cousin, surprised Percy Vere.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“’Tain’t correct.”

“Indeed! Can you suggest an improvement?”

“Yes; I should call him the Antelopess.”

Percy Vere started.

“Why, you don’t mean to say—”

“Oneotah is a she antelope—that boy’s a girl!”

“I do believe you are right!” returned Percy Vere, with conviction.

“I know I am. Did you not notice how she squealed when I squeezed her hand—and didn’t you think her hand was as soft as a girl’s?”

“I wish I could have seen her face!” said Percy Vere, thoughtfully.

“That beastly antelope’s head hides her face, and is worn on purpose to do so.”

“And yet, I fancy, it is a handsome one—it should be to correspond with her shapely and flexible limbs; but I can’t imagine why she should wish to hide it.”

“That’s Smoholler’s doings—look at the way he had his face daubed; who could make any thing of his features through all that paint? I tell you what, I don’t think the Indians know what she is—the Prophet makes them believe she is a boy, I bet.”

“Why should he make her assume such a disguise?”

“Because he’s an old humbug! He’s up to some trickery to bamboozling these Indians, all the time; that’s the way he has made himself a great man out this way. If he had been a white man, he would have been a politician; but as he’s red, he turns Prophet—with an eye to profit, don’t you see?”

“He certainly has gained a great ascendancy over the Indians.”

“Of course he has—there’s red fools as well as white ones. He’s as smart as a steel trap—you can see that with half an eye. And she’s smart.”

“Oneotah?”

“Yes; she does just as he says, and believes in him, too, but that’s only natural, because I can just guess what she is.”

“What?”

“His daughter. She’s a chip of the old block, and helps him in his hocus-pocus conjurocus, I’ll bet.”

“You’re good at guessing, and I think your guess is correct.”

“You bet! I’m Cute by name, and ’cute by nature. Tell you what, Percy—if we could have taken off that antelope’s head, do you know what we would have found beneath it?”

Percy smiled.

“We should have found her face, of course,” he answered.

“Yes, and something else—we should have found the face of the Angel that appeared on the cliff, last night.”

This assurance surprised Percy Vere.

“Do you think so?” he cried, and his voice was strongly charged with incredulity.

“I’ll just bet my bottom dollar on it! She’s the Prophet’s White Spirit, sure as a gun.”

“I have only one objection to urge to that,” replied Percy Vere. “The face of the Angel was white—you observed that?”

This remark bothered Cute a little.

“Y-e-s,” he admitted.

“And Oneotah is undoubtedly an Indian—whether boy or girl—and his, or her, face must necessarily be red.”

“Ah, yes—but couldn’t the Prophet whitewash it for the occasion?” cried Cute, triumphantly. “How can we tell but what the Prophet may have found a lot of Lily-white or Pearl Powder in some emigrant train that his braves have plundered?”

“Pshaw! that’s too ridiculous an idea.”

“You may think so, but I don’t. I tell you, this Prophet is a sly old ’coon, and up to all sorts of dodges. And then, how do we know that Oneotah is an Indian girl?” he continued, suddenly inspired with a new idea. “She may be a white girl—stolen away from her home when she was a wee bit of a shaver—I have heard of such things, haven’t you?”

“Certainly; the histories of the Indian tribes recount many such instances. I should like to see her face, for what you have said has made me very curious about it.”

“You shall see it!”

“How?”

“When we give the Prophet our next call, I’ll contrive to throw some flip-flaps for his amusement; and I’ll flip flap over Oneotah and knock her head off!”

“Oh! you mustn’t hurt her!” remonstrated Percy.

“I don’t mean to—I’ll only knock the antelope’s head off her shoulders, and then you can see her face.”

“Do you think you can do it?”

“You just keep your eye on me, and see if I don’t. Now, let’s shin up this tree and get back to camp. We shall have plenty of news for them.”

“Yes; they will be very much surprised to see us, as I think they have given us up for lost. Glyndon has reproached himself with our death, I’m sure, and he will be rejoiced to see us. Come on.”

“You first.”

They began to climb the tree.