CHAPTER VII.

OVER THE PRECIPICE!

The minutes—ten—thirty—sixty, dragged slowly by, and Clancy Vere knew naught of them. All this time he had hung by a cord between this life and the next; but he comprehended it not. He was still insensible.

The wind increased in force until it swayed the great tree from which he was suspended, and swung him backward and forward, pendulum-like, over the turbid, roaring flood below.

Still he knew it not.

By and by a lithe, dark form, with great fiery eyes and ravenous jaws drew its dark length out of the cover of a thicket near by, and creeping stealthily along the ground, ascended the tree, and crouched menacingly on a branch directly above him.

It was a panther.

For ten minutes the terrible brute eyed him with its red, fiery eyes, and then, settling further back on its haunches, prepared to pounce upon him.

Still he knew not his peril!

Closer down on the branch of the tree crouched the panther, its great red eyes seeming fairly to blaze, while its long tail waved to and fro, lashing first one of its sleek, shining sides and then the other.

It was all ready to spring—in an instant it would dart from its perch on the limb and shoot like an arrow down upon its swaying prey; every muscle of its lithe body was contracted. One breath—and then?

There was a dull, cutting sound, as a tense-drawn bow-string was jerked straight, and a long, slender arrow came whizzing out of a copse near at hand, and, pierced to the heart, the panther rolled off of the limb and fell quivering to the ground at the very moment when its victim seemed so secure and its triumph so complete. Its powerful limbs straightened out, and the ravenous brute was dead.

In a moment a form emerged stealthily from the thicket and crept across the opening to the foot of the tree.

It was Bear-Killer!

His ugly face still bled from the effects of the kick he had received from the young hunter a couple of hours before. His purpose in returning so soon to the scene of his late discomfiture and the death of his companions, is easily surmised when the reader remembers that he was as vindictive and vengeful as a fiend.

He gave the panther a kick with the toe of his moccasin, and saw at once that it was quite dead.

“The panther would cheat the red-man out of his revenge,” he said, savagely. “It must not be so. Nothing can save him now. He must die! The revenge of Bear-Killer is near at hand. The white hunter’s time has come.”

As the Indian ceased speaking, he drew his tomahawk, and stepped back a few paces where his aim at the head of the swinging and senseless young hunter would be true and certain.

He noted the distance accurately with his practiced eye, and poised his weapon.

“How quick he will die!” he muttered. “How easy Bear-Killer will slay him!”

“Bear-Killer will not slay him!” said a deep voice, close at his side; and a heavy hand was laid on his arm, so suddenly and with such force that the tomahawk fell from his grasp and half buried itself among the leaves at his feet.

Bear-Killer turned with a sharp grunt of rage and surprise. His mutilated face expressed nothing, but his small, baleful eyes scintillated like those of a cowed and baffled wolf.

The hand on his arm tightened its hold, and the deep, stern voice repeated authoritatively:

“Bear-Killer will not slay him!”

The speaker was an Indian, tall and massive in build, and manifestly the superior of Bear-Killer in strength.

His dress and equipments indicated him to be a chief. Bear Killer seemed to recognize his superiority, either of rank or strength, or both.

It was Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, who had but just now made his escape from the cabin of Emmett Darke, and the terrible power which he believed Vinnie possessed; and he was making his way back through the forest toward the Indian village, when he discovered Bear-Killer in the act of consummating his dreadful vengeance on the unconscious white man.

Ku-nan-gu-no-nah recognized this white man at a glance.

He knew it was Clancy Vere.

And he had particular reasons for not wishing Bear-Killer to become his slayer.

Perhaps his chief reason was that he wanted to put the young hunter to death himself.

He was aware that Clancy Vere was his successful rival in the affections of Vinnie Darke, or Sun-Hair, as he was wont to call her.

Jealous and vindictive as he was, this was sufficient to make him hunt his pale-faced rival to the ends of the earth, if he could not compass his death without.

Many times when he had seen Clancy go to the hunter’s cabin, had he vowed in his fierce, jealous rage to kill him, but something had heretofore always intervened to baffle him; but now he was exultant. The time for which he had so long waited had come. The young hunter was bound and insensible in his power. He asked nothing more. His triumph seemed almost complete. His discomfitures and rebuffs at Vinnie’s hands that afternoon had more than ever determined him to wreak vengeance on her lover, since he stood in too wholesome awe of the lovely magician to think for a moment of again attempting to obtain forcible possession of her person—at least not at present.

With a sudden movement, Bear-Killer wrenched himself free from the chief’s grasp, and faced him half angrily, at the same time picking up the tomahawk out of the leaves at his feet.

“Why does the chief interfere?” he asked.

“Because,” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, “he would slay the pale-face hunter himself. He has cause for revenge!”

“And has not Bear-Killer cause for revenge?” the Indian almost yelled. “Look at his face! Yonder white man did this. The pain is like a thousand tortures. What says the chief? Has he greater cause for revenge than Bear-Killer?”

“The chief has greater cause for revenge than Bear-Killer,” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah.

“He has not!” said the Indian, decisively. “Bear-Killer will not be cheated out his vengeance! He saved the pale-face from the panther that he might kill him himself!”

“And the chief has saved him from the vengeance of Bear-Killer that _he_ might have _his_ revenge!” said Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, with a grim, devilish smile. “Let the warrior wait, and he shall see the vengeance of a chief.”

He advanced toward the tree; and, as he neared it, his gaze fell on the dead and horribly mangled bodies of the savages who had fallen before the terrible charge of the Phantom Rider.

The undergrowth had concealed them from his view until now.

He started back with a loud cry of surprise and wonder.

“Did he do it?” he asked, pointing toward the swaying white man.

“No,” said Bear-Killer, in a voice that was half a gasp. “No; it was—”

“Who then?” interrogated the chief, in an awed whisper.

“The Spirit Warrior.”

“_The Spirit Warrior!_”

The chief reiterated the words in a dazed sort of way, like one under some subtle spell, while for an instant a shudder seemed to convulse his massive frame, causing it to shake like an aspen.

“Yes,” said Bear-Killer, “it was the Spirit Warrior—the spirit of the outcast chief, Meno. When will Meno’s vengeance be complete?“

“When Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and all his braves are no more! When the sons of the red-men who tortured their own chief to death are all numbered with the dead! Then, and not before, will the vengeance of the outcast and murdered sachem, Meno, be complete. Every day brings it nearer the end!”

The two Indians started as though a keen-edged knife had pierced their vitals. Then they stood transfixed with fear, staring into each other’s eyes as if to inquire the source of the answer that had come to Bear-Killer’s question almost before it had left his lips.

The tones of the voice that had spoken the words were hollow, and the weird and terrible menace seemed to be borne to them on the winds from afar off, in a wild, ghastly chant that thrilled every fiber of their superstitious beings with a vague horror that they could not shake off.

The dismal wailing of the wind through the forest trees, the sullen roar of the storm which had set in a little while before, and the monotonous dashing of the cataract below, all combined to inspire them with a sort of awed dread, that the spirit voice, crying out to them above the crash of the wind and storm, augmented into a wild, ungovernable fear.

For several moments, the two Indians stood silent and motionless, neither daring to speak or stir.

For a few seconds the wind was hushed and the dashing storm seemed to have spent its fury.

Then in an instant it seemed as if the storm demon had sent forth all his forces of wind and sleet. Trees were blown over, limbs were flying hither and thither, and the wind increased to a perfect tornado, wailing and shrieking like a regiment of fiends. The Indians saw that the white man was swinging to and fro at a fearful rate. It seemed as though the lasso must break at every oscillation. He vibrated backward through a space of fully twenty feet. They could not keep their footing, and were obliged to throw themselves prostrate on the ground.

High above the fearful roar, and crashing of uprooted trees and fallen limbs, loud and clear above the shrieking of the wind, was borne to them again the voice of Meno, the Spirit Warrior:

“Let Ku-nan-gu-no-nah beware! Meno’s vengeance will overtake him. He will die a more horrible death than even his devilish mind can comprehend! Let him beware!”

The two Indians remained motionless upon the earth, trembling at every joint. Although giant trees were being uprooted on every hand and massive limbs were falling all around them, they were unharmed.

Clancy Vere’s peril was imminent.

The tree, from a branch of which he was suspended, groaned and cracked under the force of the storm, threatening momentarily to break loose from its place in the bank and go crashing over the precipice.

Even if the stout roots remained firm in their hold on the earth, the cord by which he hung was liable to be jerked asunder at any oscillation of his body; and he would shoot headlong down into the seething flood underneath and be swept to destruction over the waterfall below.

A quarter of an hour passed, during which the two savages did not arise from their recumbent position and the spirit voice did not again speak.

The tree remained firm and the lasso seemed to deride all attempts on the part of the tempest to break it. It would crack, but it would not part.

Thus far, Clancy Vere had been saved; but he was still unconscious, and had not realized the terrible danger that had menaced him.

Soon the storm began to abate somewhat.

Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and Bear-Killer got upon their feet by-and-by, when the fury of the storm was in a measure spent.

Their sharp sense of bearing had been keenly alert to catch any further words from the Spirit Warrior. But they did not hear the terrible, menacing voice again.

“It has gone,” said the chief.

“Yes,” assented Bear-Killer, in a tone of relief. “We shall hear it no more to-day. It went away on the storm.”

“The vengeance of Meno is terrible!” said the chief, with a shudder. “But we are safe now. Now for my revenge!”

“Stop,” said Bear-Killer. “We will draw lots. I, too have come here for vengeance on the white hunter.”

The chief grunted a guttural and very unwilling compliance to this proposition.

“We must hurry,” he said, “or he will be dead. He is almost dead now.”

Bear-Killer made a very small mark on the trunk of the tree.

“The one that throws his tomahawk the nearest to the mark wins,” said he.

They took their places almost on the verge of the high bluff on which they were standing.

Ku-nan-gu-no-nah threw first.

His tomahawk buried itself in the tree-trunk, within half an inch of the mark.

There was a baleful glow in Bear-Killer’s wolfish eyes as he poised his weapon, a treacherous glitter that the chief did not fail to notice. Just as the handle of the tomahawk was slipping out of his grasp, the chief dealt him a powerful blow on the side of the head. He staggered a moment and his body swayed to and fro as he tried to regain his balance on the very edge of the bank. The next instant his wild death-yell came up from below!