CHAPTER III.

VINNIE’S STRATAGEM.

Vinnie’s face was very pale, but she did not cry out. A wild fear, an awful terror, was tugging at her heart, but she would not give way to it. She knew she would need all her native courage and coolness in the ordeal which she foresaw she must endure.

Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s hand retained its rough grip on her arm, and his harsh voice repeated:

“Come. Sun-Hair must go!”

Resistance would, she knew, be of no avail. It would only serve to arouse the Indian’s passions to a still higher pitch of intensity—to make him, if possible, still more demoniac, and still more determined than ever to fulfill his vow, and carry out his intention to abduct and bear her away to his wigwam.

She must have recourse to stratagem.

So, to gain time, she said as calmly as possible, but with a wild throbbing at her heart which she tried in vain to still:

“So the great chief loves the pale-face maiden? He would make her a queen? He would spend his whole life to make her happy? Is it not so?”

“Yes,” he said, eagerly. “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah loves Sun-Hair as the bird loves its mate. He will always make her happy. She shall never know what it is to weep. Her life shall always be pleasant. It shall be like a day when the green grass is new on the ground, and the dancing waters, freed from their cold bonds of ice, are laughing in the bright sunlight.”

“And my life shall be like one long day in the bright spring-time?” she said, as bravely as she could, smiling through all her fear.

“Yes,” again said the chief, with a searching look in her white face.

He had expected tears and opposition, and he received instead, smiles, and apparent acquiescence, and he was surprised and partially thrown off his guard.

“May be the white maiden will go with her Indian lover,” said Vinnie. “Give her time to think. It is very hard for her to leave her home and her kind old father. Does the chief think he can make Sun-Hair happier than she has been here? Can he make her forget her father and her home?”

“Did not Ku-nan-gu-no-nah tell the beautiful Sun-Hair that she should be a queen? She shall wear robes as dazzling as the light of the sun. She need not work like the Indian women. She need do nothing but sit and sing like a bird all day long. The red-women will bow their heads in shame before her bright face, and the warriors will sing songs about her beauty. They will think of their beautiful queen when they go on the war-path, and they will always return with the scalps of their dead enemies hanging in their belts. What more can Sun-Hair wish?”

“I think I will go,” said the girl, slowly. “Only give me time to think.”

“Ugh! It is well!” grunted Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with another of his sickish smiles. Then frowning darkly, and with a significant tap on the handle of his tomahawk:

“But Sun-Hair no fool the chief! If she does he will kill her! She can’t get away. Take care!”

The Indian let her free now; and he sat down on a low stool near the door, as if half fearing some treachery on Vinnie’s part, but he was pretty well assured, after all, that she would go with him without much resistance. Vinnie stood for some time, striving to think of some plan by which she might escape the Indian, who watched her every motion from under his heavy, overhanging brows, as closely as a cat watches a mouse.

There was such a look of half-suspicious triumph on his dark face and in his cruel eyes as is sometimes seen in the eyes of the panther, as it sits quietly by, watching its prey, and suffering it to live and exult in a few moments more of life that the moment of its annihilation, when it comes suddenly and unlooked for, may be the harder to bear.

But the poor girl rejected plan after plan as impracticable. At one time she thought of making some excuse to enter an adjoining apartment and secure a pistol which she knew her father kept there; but she feared that the savage would discover her intention and tomahawk her at once. Then she contemplated making a rush for the door at the cabin and escaping into the forest; but her reason told her that the chief would overtake her before she was fairly outside the door.

At last, when she had nearly given up in despair, a thought suggested itself to her brain—how, she never knew, it was so wild and strange—that made her heart leap with a newborn hope—a hope that she might yet outwit her captor and gain time until something—she know not what—should intervene to save her from the fate he had marked out for her.

She sat down by the table and opened the small box of polished wood, of which mention was made in our first chapter, the Indian watching her the while from his place near the door.

This casket, on being opened, prove to be a small galvanic battery; and Vinnie was but a moment preparing it for action.

When all was in readiness, she took a pair of electric slippers from a drawer in the table and placed them beside the battery.

Then, knowing the superstition of the Indian race, she arose, and waving her hands several times very slowly around her head, seemed to be invoking a charm. Her eyes were fixed apparently on vacancy, and she stood motionless for several minutes; then smiling sweetly, she turned to Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, who had advanced to the center of the room, and stood regarding her mystic performance with a sort of awed wonder, she said in a low, soft voice, that sounded to him like the murmuring of a distant brooklet:

“Does the chief know that the Great Manitou has given the white maiden a mysterious power, greater than is possessed by any of the Indian medicine-men? Would Ku-nan-gu-no-nah like to see evidence of the white maiden’s power?”

The Indian stood quite still while she was speaking, with a look of mingled doubt and awe on his face. At last he said in his harsh voice:

“Ugh! Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see what Sun-Hair can do. She is not a great medicine-woman. There is but one who has a mighty power from the Great Spirit, and that is Yon-da-do, the great conjuror of my tribe. Sun-Hair can’t get away. The chief will kill her if she tries. Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah see!”

“Let the chief look and be convinced!”

Vinnie attached the slippers to the conductors leading from the battery, and set them side by side on the cabin floor.

Then, taking up her position behind the table, she commenced to operate the machine slowly at first, then faster, until the slippers began to skip about, dancing a sort of shuffle, which caused the Indian’s face to take on a look of still greater wonder.

“See,” she said, turning the little crank faster, causing the magic slippers to jump higher and oftener than before. “Do you longer doubt my power? You, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, strong brave though you are, can not hold those dancing moccasins when I command them to move!”

The chief’s face lighted up in an instant with a look of scorn and contempt. No one had ever doubted his strength before. Surely he could hold those skipping bits of leather.

“Look!” he said. “Let Sun-Hair see the chief hold them so fast they can not tremble.”

He stooped down and raised them from the floor, holding one in each hand.

He clutched them firmly, and then went on:

“See the chief hold them. A pappoose could do it. See—”

His words were cut short suddenly, the slippers dropped from his hands, and with a wild shriek of terror, he ran to the further side of the room.

He stood motionless several minutes, his dusky face the picture of blank amazement, looking at the palms of his hands as if he would see what had acted upon them with such powerful effect. He could not conceal his chagrin as Vinnie said, tauntingly;

“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is a great brave. He is very strong. He can not hold a pair of moccasins. They jump out of his hands, and he runs away like a whipped dog! The big chief is very strong. What a warrior he must be!”

“It is a lie!” yelled the Indian, almost beside himself with rage and mortification. “I _can_ hold the dancing moccasins!”

“Try it,” said the beautiful magician, sententiously. Ku-nan-gu-no-nah advanced timidly, and took the slippers up daintily between his thumbs and fore-fingers.

“Get a firm hold,” said Vinnie. “You will need all of your boasted strength. Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, a great chief and a brave warrior, has said that a pappoose could hold the dancing moccasins. Let us see if he can do what a pappoose could do. He says that Sun-Hair has no mysterious power, more terrible than that of the Indian medicine-man, Yon-da-do. He will see. Is he ready?”

The savage gripped the magic slippers with all his strength, seeming determined that this time he would give the fair conjuror no opportunity to taunt him with lack of success.

“Ugh!” he grunted, “Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is ready.”

“You have them fast now, have you?”

Vinnie could not repress a smile as he answered, clutching the electric slippers tighter than before:

“Yes; they not stir now.”

She muttered a few words in a low tone, passing her hands backward and forward before her face, and commanded the slippers to dance.

At the same instant she set the battery in action, and the chief’s hands, acted upon by the electricity, which she had made more powerful than before, seemed to clutch the slippers like a vise.

A horrible expression of mingled rage and pain crossed his distorted face, and he gave utterance to a shrill scream of fear and agony that might have been heard, so loud and resonant was it, fully a mile away.

At last Vinnie ceased to turn the machine, and Ku-nan-gu-no-nah reeled back and sunk down in a corner of the cabin almost exhausted.

His eyes rolled wildly in their sockets, his mouth twitched nervously, his long, coarse black hair stood half-erect, and he trembled with an awful, superstitious fear in every fiber of his being.

“What does the chief think now of the white maiden’s power?” asked Vinnie. “What does he think of the little box and the dancing moccasins? Where now is his vaunted strength? Can the great brave do what a pappoose can do? Does he want to try again?”

“No! No!” panted Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with chattering teeth. “Sun-Hair is a great conjuror. She has a power from the Great Spirit! She has a _devil-box_, and moccasins such as are worn where the Long-knives go when they die—where there is fire always! Hell, they call it. The white maiden is a greater conjuror than Yon-da-do. She has a _devil-box_ and _hell-moccasins_!”

At this moment there were sounds of footfalls outside the door. The noise came nearer, and there was a sharp, scratching sound on the door like that produced by some keen-pointed instrument.

Vinnie felt a terrible fear forcing its way to her heart.

“My God!” she thought. “What if it should be some of Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s warriors? Would they show me any mercy after the trick I have played on their chief?”

The scratching noise was repeated, louder than before, and she could see the heavy door tremble. With a white face, she stood awaiting—she knew not what!

The Indian still cowered down in the corner, apparently heedless of what was passing around him.