CHAPTER XVII.

A REUNION OF HEARTS.

“It is Vinnie!” cried Darke, wildly. “Oh God, save my child!”

“Heavens!” exclaimed the young hunter, in the same breath. “What is that? Oh! my darling! She is lost! lost!” and he reeled in his saddle.

“Easy!” said the giant. “She is safe, and you shall both speak with her in a few minutes. It is Meno, the Spirit Warrior! He never harms the whites—he is their friend; and he’ll carry the gal to a place of safety. Git yer rifles ready. When ye see Injuns, fire sure, and don’t miss a shot. After yer rifles are emptied, git out yer pistols and shoot down ther devils as long as yer have a load left! They won’t show fight much after the accident that’s jist happened to ’em!”

A moment later they had left the timber behind, and were dashing across the little strip of prairie that lay between it and the encampment, but a few rods distant.

The four unerring rifles rung out almost simultaneously, and four savages lay dead or dying on the ground.

“Now yer pistols!” shouted the giant, plunging his spurs into his horse’s flanks, and drawing and cocking his heavy Colt’s revolver.

On they sped, their firearms keeping up an incessant rattle, dealing death on all sides.

They charged through the encampment, then, whirling, came back, separating and shooting down every brave in their path, as long as they had a load left.

The giant caught sight of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah trying to hide himself behind one of the lodges, and leaping from his horse, dragged the cowed and trembling fiend out into the middle of the encampment, shrieking and howling with fear.

“It’s time we had a sort of a settlement!” said the giant, grimly. “I guess we’ll look over our accounts now.”

The Indians, men, women and children, such as had not fallen before the terrible Phantom Rider and the subsequent charge of the four hunters, had sought refuge in the forest and thick brushwood growing on the summit of the steep, rocky acclivity at the back of the encampment.

To the credit of our friends, be it said, that they shot down only the braves. For the most part, the squaws and children escaped unharmed, but with the exception of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and a half-dozen others, every warrior was slain.

“Where’s the whites?” the giant asked the chief, with his long, bony fingers choking out the answer:

“Yonder, in the council-house.”

Following the direction of the chief’s eye, they saw a log building, the only one in the encampment, about twenty yards distant. It had the appearance of being very strongly put up, and had evidently been built with a view to use as a council-house.

Darke and the scout hastened to liberate the captives, while Clancy, attracted thither by the loud snarls and yelps proceeding from the interior, went and looked over the top of a small stockade, or rather pen, about ten feet square, standing a little at one side.

“My heavens!” he cried. “It’s full of wolves!”

“Wolves!” repeated the big hunter, as he finished binding his cowed and terrified captive to a stake near by. “How many on ’em?”

“Eight,” returned Clancy, counting. “Shall I shoot them?”

“No,” said the giant avenger, a sudden thought entering his mind. “We may have use for ’em bimeby!”

“Use for them! How?” asked the young hunter.

For answer, the giant pointed to Ku-nan-gu-no-nah!

“Come,” he said, “let’s go and take a look at the prisoners. They’re free now. Thar’s two men and a woman; and one of the men’s got on a plug hat and a white shirt and a swaller-tail coat and a standin’ collar and a dirty choker,” he went on, as they drew near the liberated emigrants. “He looks for all the world like a preacher!”

Just then the face of the man described by the giant—a smooth-shaven, sanctimonious face, that had not been wrinkled with a smile for ten years—was turned toward them, and the big hunter stopped and stood still in his tracks a moment, overcome with astonishment, staring hard at the emigrants, who, with Darke and Wimple, were advancing toward them.

Clancy regarded him with amazement.

“Gracious!” he said, at last, “it’s Elder Tugwoller! And oh, Lordy! thar’s Sally! My Sally, I mean! Oh, Lord! it’s Sally! _Sally!_ Sally!” he cried, and a moment later he had picked her off her feet, and was holding her in his great, strong arms, as if she had been a baby.

She had recognized him when he called out to her, and flew to meet him.

The elder and the other man, as well as the rest of the party, were regarding them with astonishment. Catching sight of the stranger, Leander set Sally down as suddenly as he had taken her up, saying anxiously, as he thought he might have been hugging another man’s wife:

“Are ye married, Sally? Is that yer man?”

“No, Leander,” she replied, throwing herself again into his arms; and after vainly trying to reach her hands around his neck—for she was very short, her head reaching but a little above his elbows—she buried her blushing face, not in the orthodox style in his bosom, but in his fur vestment somewhere below. “No, Leander, I hain’t married. I wouldn’t never marry no man but you! I’ve had fifteen offers since I see you last, and I refused ’em all! I thought we’d meet ag’in sometime, the good Lord willin’!”

“And he _was_ willin’, Sally! Yer mine now, ain’t ye?”

“Yes,” she replied, “your’n allers—till the Bunker Hill monument crumbles to dust!”

“And we won’t never git things mixed and twisted ag’in?”

“No,” said she; “nothin’ shan’t never part us ag’in!”

And the long-sundered hearts were reunited.

“Sarah,” said the Elder, through his nose, “are you going to marry with that ungodly man of strife?”

“Yes, uncle Tugwoller,” she answered; “I’m a-goin’ to marry that same ungodly man of strife, an’ be jist as good a wife to him as I know how!”

Darke was beginning to evince great anxiety to see his daughter once more, and the ludicrous reunion of the big hunter and his old-time sweetheart, that he had just witnessed, somehow made Clancy long to meet Vinnie.

“Come,” said the woodman, “let us go at once.”

“Wait a few minits,” answered the now happy Leander. “We’ve got a little bizness to attend to yet. I’ve got Ku-nan-gu-no-nah tied to a stake down thar, and it’s about time he retired from bizness. He’s committed crimes—blacker ones than ye can imagine—and he must have his punishment. We’ll give him a trial before we finish him off. Come on.”

And he led the way back to the open space in the center of the encampment, where, to the same stake to which Ku-nan-gu-no-nah had so often bound his captives, he was himself tied so securely that, struggle as he might, he could not get free, and knowing that his doom was at hand, he had made superhuman efforts to break his bonds, but without avail. He was completely cowed; at the last, all his courage and hardihood seemed to have left him, and he stood, quaking with terror, his dusky face blanched to an ashen hue!

“Now,” said the big hunter, laying his hand on the Indian’s shoulder, “ef any one here has got any charges to prefer ag’in’ the prisoner at the stake, the court is ready to attend to the case.”

“The prisoner pulled off my dicky to-day,” said the Elder, dolorously, “and otherwise disarranged my apparel. I think he deserves condign punishment!”

But other charges of graver import were to come.

“He shot our guide,” said Sally Niver; “and put his arm round my waist, when he lifted me out of the wagon, and no decent man would do that—unless he had a right to,” she added, with a glance at Leander. “I think he ought to be hung for murderin’ the guide, anyway!”

“He killed my brother John!” said Wimple.

“He butchered my old father and mother!” said the giant, “and he’s got to die an awful death for it! If any one here thinks he ought to live after committin’ all these crimes, let him speak!”

There was no voice to speak against the execution of the giant’s sentence, and he said:

“Shall he live or die? I’ll give him one more chance.”

“Let him die!” was the answer; and almost before the startled spectators realized what had taken place, Leander Maybob had cut the thongs that bound the doomed chief to the stake, and rearing him above his head, hurled him over the low stockade, among the snarling, half-famished wolves!

Retribution had come at last! He had expiated his many crimes! The vengeance of Leander and Alonphilus Maybob was accomplished!

A few moments later, the whole party rode out of the almost depopulated Indian village, the liberated captives mounted on some Indian ponies that they had found tethered near by.

“Now, Mr. Darke, we’ll go to yer gal!” said Leander.