CHAPTER II.

CLANCY VERE AND HIS TROUBLE.

“Here I am!”

It was a young man who spoke, standing on the bank of a small stream that had its course through the forest at a point about two miles distant, as a bird flies, from Emmett Darke’s cabin.

He was tall and well-formed, with hazel eyes and dark-brown hair. His face was clear-cut and handsome, open and frank in its expression, while it indicated a goodly stock of firmness and courage.

This is Clancy Vere, the young hunter, an allusion to whom had brought the rich blood to Vinnie’s face that very afternoon.

He was clad in a complete suit of dressed deer-skin, elaborately ornamented about the shoulders with bright-colored beads and quills, his hunting-shirt being gathered about his waist with a wide belt from which protruded the stock of a heavy revolver and the silver-mounted hilt of a long bowie-knife, while a powder-horn and bullet-pouch were slung by a leathern cord under his left arm.

As he spoke, he dropped the butt of his rifle, a trim, beautifully-mounted weapon, until it rested on the turf at his feet; then he stood leaning on it for a long time, looking intently down into the depths of the eddying stream before him.

He was thinking—of a girl with blue eyes and golden brown hair—of Emmett Darke’s beautiful daughter, Vinnie.

Clancy Vere loved Vinnie devotedly, and not hopelessly, she had led him to think; though, as yet, he had never made any formal declaration of his passion.

Still, as a look is oftentimes fraught with more meaning than the most high-sounding speech, and the pioneer’s daughter had not, upon certain occasions which he could recall, been chary of these looks, Vere was very far from being despondent.

He lived at a small settlement a half-dozen miles away, and had set out that morning to visit the cabin of the hunter. His errand there may be easily surmised.

He had proceeded thus far on his way without adventure worthy of note, and intended to cross the stream in a canoe that he knew Darke kept concealed in the undergrowth at a place a hundred yards below the spot where he now stood.

So intent was he upon his musings, that he heard no sound save the rippling of the water and the roar of the wind through the trees.

He did not see the bushes part close behind him and a dusky form emerge from its concealment, to be followed by another, then another, until six Indians had entered the little grassy space in which he was standing, and began stealthily to take different positions around him until his chances of escape were cut off on all sides.

He was brought to realize his situation in a moment.

A chorus of shrill, exultant yells rung out on every hand.

He turned on the instant, and his quick eye measured the strength of his savage foes. They were too near at hand for him to bring his rifle to bear; but gripping it firmly around the barrel, he brought the ponderous stock down on his nearest assailant, crushing in his skull like an egg-shell.

There was a muffled thud as the deadly weight fell a second time, and another savage sunk over on the ground without a groan.

An Indian was creeping up stealthily behind him. As Vere raised his clubbed rifle a third time, throwing it high above his head, in order that the blow might be more effective, the savage, who had been crouching down on the ground a moment close beside him, sprung high in the air, and clutching the gun-barrel near the lock, wrenched it from the young hunter’s hands just as it began to descend.

This quick, hard pull upon the weapon, which he gripped with all his strength, caused him to stagger a trifle, and before he could regain his footing and draw his bowie-knife, the three remaining Indians sprung upon him and bore him to the ground.

In a moment his elbows were pinioned behind his back, and his weapons were transferred from his belt to those of his captors.

They pulled him roughly to his feet, and an Indian took his place on either side, leading him along by the arms. The brave who had disarmed him walked behind, while the remaining savage, who was evidently a warrior of some importance, to judge from the number of eagle’s feathers which ornamented his head and the many trophies of the war-path and the chase which were hung about his neck and secured to his belt, led the way up the stream, pausing ever and anon to give some guttural command in his native dialect to his followers, who clutched their captive’s arms firmly, as if they feared that, bound and almost helpless as he was, he would attempt to escape.

They had seen evidence of his prowess, and wisely concluded that he was a safer prisoner well guarded than when allowed to walk alone.

For an hour they kept on, over fallen trees and heaps of rock, through tangled masses of undergrowth, now bearing a little to the right, then to the left; but always keeping within hearing of the stream, whose monotonous murmurings seemed to grow louder and hoarser as they proceeded, until they changed to a wild, sullen roar, like the impetuous rushing and dashing of a cataract.

At length, after a long silence, the leader of the party turned toward Vere and said, impressively:

“Does the pale-face hear the song of the waterfall? It is chanting his death-song! The black waters laugh because they will swallow up the pale-face!”

Soon the sun appeared through an opening in the leaden gray clouds that had drifted lazily through the sky until they were gathered together in a dark, lowering mass overhead, and its bright rays trembled for a moment upon the surface of the water.

“See!” continued the Indian, pointing to the falls just visible through the trees. “See the waters smile! They laugh because the red men will give them a pale-face victim! Let the white man hear them sing! ‘Ha! ha!’ they say, ‘the pale-face must die!’ It is his death chant! The great Manitou is speaking through the laughing waters. He is happy with his red children when a pale-face dies. The white hunter is brave. He is not afraid to fight. But his heart will grow small within his bosom when he must go down into the black waters—the river of death! Will he be brave when he meets the unknown dangers of the dark valley? He will find it hard to die now. He is young and the world looks bright to his eyes. Perhaps a white woman will weep when he is dead. The Indian women have mourned for their husbands and brothers when they have gone out to fight the Long-knives and never returned. The laughing waters are crying aloud for their victim. The white man must die!”

“We all must die,” said Vere, calmly, not caring to show the concern he really felt. “Men have died before, why should I fear death?”

An expression of surprise flitted over the Indian’s painted face.

Few men could meet death so calmly.

The young hunter had resolved not to die without a desperate struggle; but he preferred that his captors should think him resigned to his fate—the horrible fate which seemed inevitable.

A few rods above the falls a tree grew far out over the water, rushing madly to the cataract below.

The bank at this point was rough and jagged, its steep and rocky sides jutting out full twenty feet above the black, roaring mass underneath.

The party halted here.

“The pale-face hunter’s feet must be tied,” said the Indian who had spoken before. “He must not fight with the laughing waters.”

Producing a stout leathern thong, about twelve feet in length, one of the savages advanced to coil it around the captive’s ankles.

As he stooped, Vere drew his foot back suddenly and planted it with tremendous force squarely in his face, flattening his long nose and knocking out several of his sharp white teeth.

The Indian rolled over on the ground with a wild screech.

The pain was terrible, and he lay for a moment, pressing his disfigured face and giving utterance to a series of hoarse, agonized groans.

Then he sprung up suddenly with a wild yell of rage and vengeance.

He was upon Vere in an instant, his long fingers entwined in his hair and his scalping-knife circling with lightning rapidity around his head.

The young hunter’s arms were securely pinioned.

He was utterly powerless in the red fiend’s hands.

Death—sudden and terrible—seemed certain; but he did not flinch.

His fearless eye was fixed on the Indian’s face, and his own did not change when he felt the keen knife-point pricking the skin upon the crown of his head.

He was not afraid to die.

He thought of the terrible, because unknown life beyond the grave—and of Vinnie!

Would she weep when he was gone?

He trusted so, and stood calmly awaiting the great change.