CHAPTER XIII.

THE SWOOP OF THE AVENGER.

“Gold Feather is here. Is the chief angry with him that he should put the warriors on his track?”

“Yes,” he cried; “why did Gold Feather ride to the mountains, and meet the pale-faces in the shadows of the crags? Let him speak the truth, for Tarantulah knows all.”

“Gold Feather’s skin is white,” was the firm reply, “and when he accidentally met the pale-faces among the hills, his heart went out to them, and he resolved to help them, even against the Pawnee king.”

“Then Gold Feather told the trapper where Kenoagla slept?”

“Yes.”

“Traitor!” hissed Tarantulah; “the Apaches shall mete out a terrible punishment to the dog that betrays.”

With yells a score of Indians set to work to plant another stake, which operation was completed in a short space of time, and the young traitor was quickly lashed thereto.

“This is quite a change of fortune, Shackelford,” said the renegade, approaching the trapper, and facing him with a devilish leer. “I guess I will not go to Fort Kearney with you. I am quite content here.”

“Had it not been for those bufflers you’d ’a swung in Fort Kearney ere this,” responded Shackelford.

“What are they waiting on?” he cried, impatiently, turning to an old chief who stood at his side. “I’m getting anxious to see the fun.”

“Gold Feather wants to die a pale-face,” was the reply, “and the paint of the Apaches must be washed from his body before the strong fire comes.”

“Well, it’s natural for him to want to die decently,” grated Tom Kyle, “and I shall curb my eagerness for the burning with the impatience to see what kind of a looking white man the traitor makes.”

Presently several warriors advanced to Gold Feather, and applied strong alkali-water to his person. Then, after thoroughly soaking his skin, as it seemed, they rubbed him with coarse skins which served as towels.

Beneath this operation a startling metamorphosis manifested itself.

Gold Feather was a white man once more!

Tom Kyle stood off, and gazed on the singular spectacle; and stepped to Tarantulah’s side.

“Now let them die!”

“When the pale-girls come.”

“What! must those sensitive creatures witness this horrible sight?” cried the renegade. “No, chief, rather let them remain in the lodges, and when the fire dies out let them view the blackened trees.”

“Tarantulah is sachem of the Apaches,” was the stern rejoinder. “Kenoagla is an ally, not yet a great Apache chief; but he will be, soon. The pale girl must fling the lie into Gold Feather’s teeth before he dies. Ha! they come.”

The next moment the Apache ranks divided, and Mabel Denison and Lina Aiken were led into the circle.

Though daylight was not far distant, it was very dark, but innumerable torches revealed the terrible scene, and clothed it in a garment which day could not own.

“Sir, must we witness this torture of two brave men?” asked Lina Aiken, when the renegade stepped to her side. “Have you no authority here? I find your boastings to be lies; yourself the lowest of men--an Indian’s slave!”

Tom Kyle bit his lip, and muttered a few words which the Gold Girl could not comprehend, for his voice shook with passion, and could scarcely be heard.

“Girl,” cried Tarantulah, at this juncture, suddenly pausing before Mabel Denison, and griping her slender arm, “who slew Long Arrow, your Apache guard?”

“These hands,” was the undaunted reply, and Mabel put forth her hands, which touched the sachem’s wampum. “I killed him--struck him twice before he fell.”

“Long Arrow saved Tarantulah’s life.”

The chief’s whole frame shook with emotion.

“Another stake!” he cried.

Tom Kyle stepped between him and his new victim.

“The pale girl’s mind is wandering,” he said. “The minions of White Lasso, the Pawnee, slew her father, when they drove her from the lodges. Her head is cracked; she does not know what she is saying. It was the trapper who slew Long Arrow.”

The executioners, who had caught the renegade’s words, paused and looked at Tarantulah.

The chief heard Tom Kyle patiently, and his anger fled, when he turned to them, slowly, deliberately.

“Another stake!”

The Pawnee king turned away with an oath.

“By George! I’m nobody here, after all,” followed the evil word. “I’m no better than a dog in Tarantulah’s eyes, when the devil creeps into his heart. To-morrow night, Miss Aiken and I will take another ride into the city of Mexico. They will burn Miss Denison; I can’t help her longer.”

When the words “another stake,” uttered for the second time, fell from Tarantulah’s lips, Mabel Denison crept forward and threw her arms about her fair, tearful companion in misfortune.

“Lina, we part forever here,” she murmured, as Lina’s lips touched her cheek, and glued themselves there. “The stake is my portion; what yours is, Heaven will disclose!”

“No! no! Mabel; if you die here, so will I,” was the determined response, couched in a calm tone. “What were life to me without you, girl? No, no, dear Mabel; our troubles end together. Chief! Tom Kyle is my captor, I know; I am his, by your Indian law; but he is a white man, and has no right to me; so give me leave, chief, to perish here with my friend. Better--oh, a thousand times better this than a life with the outlaw, Tom Kyle!” she cried, with a touching pathos.

“Kyle! Kyle!” cried Gold Feather, from his stake. “Is your white name Kyle?”

The renegade was too astonished to speak for a moment, during which time he moved nearer Gold Feather.

“Yes, my name’s Kyle--Tom Kyle,” said the renegade, at last. “What’s your real name?”

“Ned Kyle, if I haven’t forgotten the past,” was the reply.

Tom snatched a torch from an Indian and shot forward like a startled horse.

“If there’s a scar on your shoulder, you’re my brother,” he cried; and the next moment a loud cry welled from his throat.

He dropped the torch, which revealed a scar on Gold Feather’s shoulder, and his knife began to sever the young chief’s bonds.

This action was met by furious yells, and the Indians drew their knives and tomahawks in a menacing manner. The dread circle, bristling with iron and steel, also contracted.

“Gold Feather is a traitor--he shall die!”

“He’s my brother!” grated the renegade, in a fierce, determined tone, and he shielded the marked man with his body. “Apaches, listen to me. Many moons ago--”

The vengeful yells drowned Tom Kyle’s words, and he stopped in the beginning of a narrative and cursed the red fiends from the depth of his heart.

“I’ve been a devil, I have!” he shouted; “but I won’t desert my brother. I’ll stand by him to the last, and if you get him, ’twill be over the King of the Pawnees.”

“Tom Kyle, you’re a man once more. I wouldn’t shoot you now for the world.”

It was Frontier Shack who spoke, and over the flames that were now lighted up before him, he looked upon the striking tableau.

The Indians were furious.

Tom Kyle had not a red friend in the village now, and over all the monster death spread his black wings and slowly descended.

The chord of life was being rent in twain for many.

Nearer and nearer came the Indians; the outer ones pushed the front ranks, and Tom Kyle saw that he was to be taken alive.

His days of sovereignty were ended. He who had controlled a nation could not now control a single man.

“You’re near enough now!” he shouted, raising the revolver which his right hand clutched, and a click, click at his elbow told him that Gold Feather was about to use the weapon which he had thrust into his hand. “We’ve got twelve loads for you, and twelve wigwams shall be without warriors, by heaven, if you come two paces nearer.”

The determined visage awed the Indians, and several involuntarily shrunk from the muzzles of the weapons which the red-man dreads.

But the outer circle, with wild yells, still crowded their brothers forward, and the renegade’s finger touched the trigger, when a war cry, which palsied many a savage heart, drowned every shout of Apache vengeance.

Tarantulah turned; the red circle broke, and in places disappeared like mist before the sun.

The tramp of hundreds of horses was mingled with war-cries of the most startling nature, and the flaring of torches revealed Pawnees, Ogallahs and Omahas riding like demons of destruction through the village.

“Great heavens!” cried Tom Kyle, as he cut Frontier Shack’s bonds, “what an hour of destruction this is!”

“I never saw its like,” was the reply; “and if we’ve got to die, Tom, let us die like men!”

“We will; but look yonder!”

Shackelford looked, and beheld Charley Shafer and George Long lashed to horses whose bridles were held by a giant Ogallah.