CHAPTER VI.

OUT IN THE STORM.

Trembling herself with a fear all the more terrible because of its vagueness and uncertainty, and with her beautiful face pale as death, Vinnie stood and watched the trembling of the heavy cabin door, as the scratching noise was repeated for a third time.

The sound was louder, more imperative than before.

The chief seemed suddenly to arouse from the state of frightened inactivity into which he had fallen, and rising on his feet, walked, or rather staggered, toward the shaking door.

He seemed to have lost all his strength, for he reeled across the floor like a drunken man.

For two or three minutes the sound was not repeated, and Vinnie and the savage stood waiting with bated breath.

They had not long to wait.

Again came that harsh, grating sound, as though some one was digging the point of a knife, or some other hard, sharp instrument into the door.

Almost simultaneously with this noise, came a long, low whine, evidently that of a brute.

Vinnie started.

The look of wild fear left her face, and she advanced toward the door, while the low wail was repeated in a louder key and more prolonged than before.

She gave utterance to a glad exclamation.

“It is _Death_!”

It was evident in a moment that Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, also, had discovered the cause of the strange sounds.

He seemed to gain new strength.

“It is the dog!” he said harshly, laying hold of the girl’s hand, just as she was about to open the door to admit Death.

Vinnie nodded.

“He is large and strong,” continued the chief, “and his teeth are like the points of knives!”

She knew her power over his untutored, superstitious mind, and she was no longer afraid.

She nodded again and said:

“Yes, he is very strong, and his teeth are like needles. If he sets them into an Indian’s flesh he will die. Shall I let him in to you? His name is Death!”

The savage gripped her hand tighter.

“No,” he said, with evident alarm. “Sun-Hair must not let the dog in.”

Giving her a quick, sudden pull, he drew her across the room and through the other apartment to a rear door.

Her face changed color and she tried to release herself from his hold, but without avail.

Here he unhanded her, and went back and closed the door between the two rooms. Barring it securely he returned, and laying his heavy hand on her shoulder, he bent over till his dark face almost touched hers, and fairly hissed through his set teeth:

“Sun-Hair has a mighty power from the great Manitou. She has escaped Ku-nan-gu-no-nah this time, with her devil-box; but let her beware! If the dog could get at the chief he would kill him, but Ku-nan-gu-no-nah is safe. Before Sun-Hair can open both doors he will be away in the forest. Let the pale-face medicine-woman beware!”

Vinnie did not try to detain him. She could not. All the time he had been speaking, his hard, bony fingers were closed on her shoulder like an iron vise.

He let go his hold suddenly, and an instant later was running across the little open space at the rear of the cabin.

Vinnie saw him disappear among the trees, and then turned and opened the door that led into the other apartment.

In a moment she had undone the fastenings of the other one, and the blood-hound sprung into the cabin.

He stopped before Vinnie, and looking up into her face, gave utterance to a long, low whine.

She patted his head and caressed him, but he would not be satisfied.

Still whining piteously he turned, and with his red eyes fixed on her face walked toward the door.

She did not heed this mute appeal.

He turned again and going up to her, took hold of her dress with his teeth and pulled it quietly.

“Why, Death, old fellow!” she said, caressing the sagacious brute again. “What is the matter? Where is your master?”

When she mentioned her father the dog pulled harder at her dress, almost pulling her along toward the door.

A wild fear seemed suddenly to force its way to her heart. There was only one way in which she could account for the strange demeanor of the dog.

Surely something must have happened to her father!

She was sure of this when she remembered a story that he had told her once, about the blood-hound’s saving her life when she was a child of five or six.

The chill wind was blowing harder than when the hunter set out from the cabin, and the black, angry clouds, hanging low in the sky, threatened momentarily to open and shower down the cold, half-frozen November rain over the earth.

Suddenly, while Vinnie looked out, there came a fierce gust of wind tearing through the great oaks and rattling their heavy leafless branches against the walls of the cabin.

Twigs and leaves were flying in wild confusion through the air, and it was growing darker every moment.

“A wild and fearful storm is approaching,” said the girl, shudderingly; “but I must not hesitate. My father is in danger—may be he is—”

She paused a breath, as if fearful to say the word; and then went on: “Maybe he is dead!”

The dog was tugging at her dress again.

“Yes,” she said, in reply to his dumb, eager look. “Yes, I am going. Come!”

And shutting the door after her, she followed her brute guide out into the storm, which had now begun to fall, and away through the forest till they arrived at the place where the hunter had met with the accident from the falling limb a short time before.

Here the dog stopped, and after sniffing about for a moment, readily found the trail which the giant hunter had made as he carried Darke away to the cavern, where we left him at the close of our last chapter.

Then he turned, and pulling again at Vinnie’s dress, trotted slowly away on the track he had just discovered.

The storm had been steadily increasing, and it had been growing darker all the time, till the forest was indescribably somber and gloomy.

The brave girl did not shrink; but drawing a blanket she had thrown around her on leaving the cabin closer about her slender form, to shield her in a measure from the sleet that dashed against her person, cutting almost like a knife, she pushed on after the blood-hound, increasing her speed to keep up with him.

By and by Death stopped suddenly at the foot of a steep, rocky acclivity.

He seemed, all at once, to have lost the trail.

Vinnie drew her blanket closer about her face and shoulders, and crouching close up against the trunk of a large tree, watched him eagerly.

He ran back and forth several times along the base of the acclivity, searching for the lost trail; then paused at last, with a quick, glad yelp, before a large rock that, almost hidden by the thick overhanging shrubbery along the hillside, seemed to be firmly imbedded in the earth. Then for several minutes he made no sign.

Had he lost the trail again?

He whined, and began to scratch away at the earth about the bottom of the bowlder.

Vinnie, at a loss to account for his strange behavior, drew the blanket up over her head, and creeping closer up under the friendly shelter of the great tree-trunk, looked on in wonder.

It did not occur to her that the flat stone might conceal the entrance to the cavern beyond—for she was indeed at the opening that led into the place where Leander Maybob, the giant hunter, had carried her father but a little while before.

Soon the blood-hound stopped digging, and sat down, with another long, low whine, keeping his red eyes fixed immovably on the dark surface of the rock before him.

“What can it mean?” Vinnie asked herself. “He does not search for the trail any longer. Why does he stop here? What is there about that rock? I wonder if it is immovable. Perhaps it covers the trail some way. I am going to attempt to move it. It looks very ponderous. It must be very heavy.”

She examined the bowlder closely, but could see nothing to indicate that it had ever been stirred from the place where it seemed so firmly imbedded into the earth.

She laid hold of a corner that appeared to project more than any other portion of the rock, and pulled with all her strength.

The stone remained immovable. Of what avail were her weak little hands?

“I can not stir it,” she said. “It is as firmly fixed as masonry. I am not strong enough.”

When the dog saw that she was trying to remove the bowlder, he recommenced scratching at the dirt at its base, giving utterance ever and anon to quick, glad yelps.

She tried once more; but her second efforts were as unavailing as her first.

“It is no use,” she said, half to herself and half to the blood-hound. “I can not stir it. But what does it mean? In what manner does it cover the trail? It does, somehow; or Death would surely pick it up and follow on. What a fearful storm! I never saw one like it before. How the sleet cuts my face and hands!”

And she shrunk back into her old shelter.

The dog kept his place before the bowlder, from which he never removed his eyes till his quick ear caught a strange sound, which even Vinnie heard plainly above the roar of the storm.

Following the direction of the brute’s gaze, the girl saw a sudden and unexpected sight.

Some one was approaching on a white horse.

She cowered down out of sight behind the tree-trunk and watched. The storm half blinded her; but she could see that it was a man, and that something, wrapped in a thick, black cloth, hung limp and helpless across the horse before him. It was like a human being. Was it alive or dead?