CHAPTER VIII.

THE GIANT’S STORY.

Darke noted the angry flash in the dwarf’s little black eyes, as he nodded an eager assent to his brother’s strange question, and wondered not a little what the “one great purpose” of this queerly assorted pair’s lives was; but he forbore to question the giant, not doubting that, if it was not some secret that they did not wish to disclose, he would explain himself in good time. And this belief was not far from correct, as the giant hunter’s next words attested. He sat down on a stool near at hand; and as Alonphilus came and stood at his side, he said:

“Yes; wer’e livin’ for some purpose. We have given our lives up to revenge! Wer’e a-gittin’ revenge every day, hain’t we, ’Lon?”

The dwarf’s round little pate was bent forward again until Darke just caught the glitter of the dusky eye under the broad rim of his slouch hat; and this he interpreted to be a token of assent to the giant’s question. As his face was raised to view again, he thought he saw the dwarf’s mute lips move, as if in an attempt to speak, and he imagined that volumes of vindictive, vengeful words were struggling for utterance. But the dumb tongue was incapable of expressing even a tithe of the dark passion that was written on every lineament of the pigmy’s face.

“And we’ve anuff to be revenged for, God knows!” Leander Maybob went on. “We can’t never wipe out of our memories our old father and mother that the red devils murdered in cool blood; we can’t never forgit the awful sight our eyes rested onto, when we came home from a hunt one morning; we can’t never wipe this out of our minds. But, the just God helpin’ us, we’ll wipe every one of their murderers off o’ the earth before we die! The devil that led them shall die a more horrible death than even his own hellish mind has planned for his poor helpless victims! We’ve done a deal t’ward fulfillin’ our vow in the past six years; eh, ’Lon? We’ve made many a savage bite the dust in that time!”

The dwarf’s hand darted into the bosom of his hairy vestment; it came out again in an instant, and he held up to Darke’s view a deer-skin string about four feet in length, which was knotted almost from one end to the other.

He touched each knot in succession with the forefinger of his right hand, accompanying every motion with a nod of the head.

“There’s just a hundred an’ forty-eight knots,” said the big hunter; “and every one on ’em is a red-skin’s eppytoph!”

That slender strip of deer-skin, simple and harmless as it appeared, told a ghastly story of conflict and of death and of half-sated vengeance!

“We’ll git our hands on him yet,” the big hunter went on. “We’ve had chances to kill him of’en enough; but jest a common death ain’t enough fer him. He desarves more; an’ I want to give him his jest desarts. He must die an awful death! Our vengeance’ll overhaul him yet, ’Lon. Then you may tie a double knot! We’ll give him two varses to his eppytoph; eh, ’Lon?”

The dwarf nodded, touched the hilt of his hunting-knife significantly, and made motions as if to tie a knot in the string which he still held in his hand.

“Of whom do you speak?” queried Darke, as he supported himself on his elbow.

“The red fiend that led the attack on our cabin! The devil that shot my mother and carried my old father’s white scalp away in his belt! Hain’t we got reason plenty fer vengeance? Do ye wonder that we hunt, and kill Indians as you would kill serpints? Do ye think it’s strange that we don’t want to let that red imp die a common way?”

The big hunter had arisen while he spoke, drawing his Titanic form up to its full hight. The expression on his face was terrible to look upon. As he finished, he brought his ponderous clenched fist down, striking it in the horny palm of his other hand.

Drake half shuddered.

“No—_no_!” he cried. “No death—no torture on earth is horrible enough to be meet punishment for the atrocities of such a fiend incarnate! Is he an Indian chief?”

The giant nodded. His ungovernable rage seemed to have entirely spent itself, and he did not speak; but stood with folded arms and downcast eyes, his massive frame as motionless as though carved out of the solid rock around them.

Alonphilus seemed to partake keenly of this feeling of undying, inveterate hatred of the Indians. His face wore a hard, implacable look, and he kept drawing the record of their vengeance slowly through his fingers from one hand to the other, as if he longed to tie the short end of it that was yet unmarked by the little death register into one great hard knot, that could never be entangled, in commemoration of the passage from this life to the next of the murderer of his parents and the triumphant consummation of their terrible work of vengeance.

The spell that was on the big hunter was only momentary, and it was but a minute or two before he was himself again; and he signified his willingness to resume the conversation by saying, as he reseated himself on the stool at the side of the couch of skins on which Darke reclined:

“Well, I heerd Elder Fugwoller say onc’t—and he was college l’arnt—‘It’s a long tow-path, or cow-path, or suthin’, as hasn’t got no turns into ’em;’ and I believe it’s true as gospil.”

The dwarf turned and walked across the cavern, and, pushing aside the dividing curtain, disappeared within the inner apartment, replacing the death record in his bosom as he did so.

“The day of retribution is sure to come at last. It is not often that the guilty escape punishment,” said Darke. “It is sure to overtake them sooner or later. God’s justice is certain!”

“I’m a-thinkin’,” returned Leander Maybob, “as how Ku-nan-gu-no-nah’s tow path or cow-path’ll take a mighty unexpected turn some day!”

“Ku-nan-gu-no-nah!”

The big hunter seemed surprised at Darke’s sudden exclamation.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s the devil’s name. Do you know him? Have _you_ got an account ag’in’ him?”

“Yes,” cried Darke, sitting bolt upright on the couch, while a hard, stern look settled on his face. “Yes; I believe I have. And I am going to present it for settlement the very first time I see him!”

“What do you mean?” the other asked, evincing no small degree of interest in the words and actions of Darke. “Has he ever—”

“I’ll tell you,” interrupted Darke. “Then you’ll understand how it is. We—I mean Vinnie, my motherless daughter, and myself—live alone in our little cabin. There is no one to keep us company and no one that I can leave with her when, as I am often compelled to do, I go in search of game out into the woods. Sometimes I am absent a whole day together; but I never stay away over night. Some time last summer, while Vinnie was wandering through the edge of wood that skirts our little clearing, Ku-nan-gu-no-nah saw her and conceived the idea of making her his wife. Always choosing times when I was away, he has several times come to my cabin; trying to persuade Vinnie to go with him to his wigwam and become his squaw. He has never offered her violence, but the last time, failing to induce her to do as he wished, he threatened to abduct her and bear her away to the Indian village. I have left her a pistol to be used as a protector, and she has not been brought up on the frontier without learning how to handle it. I am staying away to-day, I fear, longer than I ought to. I hope I shall be able to go home soon. How long is it since you brought me here? I begin to feel stronger, as if I could walk easily enough now. Have I been here long, did you say?”

“I lugged ye in here som’eres about the middle of the a’ternoon,” replied the other, “and it’s purty near night now. ’Lon’s comin’ back with the glims now. You’ve b’en here som’ere’s about three or four hours. D’ye b’lieve yer fit to travel now?”

“Yes,” said Darke. “I think all my strength has come back. I do not feel weak or faint; but my head aches terribly—that’s all. I must go.”

The dwarf entered at this juncture, bearing four or five pitch-pine torches, which he lighted and stuck into niches in the rocky walls of the cavern.

“I s’pose ye calkilate to shoot him?” said Leander Maybob, eagerly. “I s’pose ye’ll kill him. ’Twould only jest be in the natur’ of things fer ye to do so; but I wish ye wouldn’t. I wish ye wouldn’t harm a hair of his head. Ye see he can’t die only onc’t; and if you kill him he won’t suffer only one death. If we wipe him out, he’ll hev to die a hundred deaths in one! If ye jest load a gun in the common way and fire it off, that’s all there is of it; but if ye puts in a good many loads and rams ’em down good till ye’ve got it chuck full cl’ar to the muzzle, and then manage some way to git out of danger and gives the trigger a leetle jerk, why then ye’ll bu’st the ’tarnal thing. Ye see when we tech Ku-nan-gu-no-nah off, we calkilates to bu’st him. I wish ye’d jest let us pay it all off together—your score and our own. What d’ye say?”

“You know a man always feels better for taking his own revenge,” said Darke. “It’s more satisfactory.”

“Yes, I know ’tis,” replied the big hunter. “I know ’tis, and I wouldn’t nohow let any man take our job outen our hands; but when I tell ye our story, I b’lieve ye’ll agree as we’re the ones that ought to have the prime chance at Ku-nan-gu-no-nah. If I’ll tell it to ye, ye’ll jest give the subjick a few minutes thort, won’t ye?”

“I should like very much to hear your story,” said Darke; “and I’ll consider what you have proposed.”

It is unnecessary that we should follow Leander Maybob through the somewhat tedious length of recital, during which he made many pauses and numerous repetitions; but we will give the reader the substance of his sad story.

The giant hunter had, with his dwarf brother and his parents, considerably advanced in life, come from the East seven years before, and erected a pioneer’s cabin at a place down the river twenty or twenty-five miles from their cavern lodge. They commenced making a little clearing, and for several months all went well; although the Indians made almost daily visits to their forest home, they never molested any thing or offered any violence. The days went by and they began to fancy themselves secure from any harm from the savages. But they put too much faith in their treacherous natures. When Darke heard how a band of the dusky fiends, led by Ku-nan-gu-no-nah, attacked the old settler’s cabin one dark, stormy night in the absence of his sons—when he heard how the stout-hearted, gray-haired old man and his feeble wife had been driven out, after defending their cabin and their lives gallantly for nearly two hours, by the flames which were devouring their little log home, whose rough walls had warded off the Indians’ bullets, which had rallied harmlessly from their sides; how they had been butchered as they came out from the roaring, crackling mass—when the giant avenger told him with a moisture suffusing his eyes of the return next morning of himself and Alonphilus and the heart-sickening sight they beheld; when he heard all this, he could not wonder that these strange brothers had taken a solemn and fearful vow to avenge their parents’ death. He knew that their claim on the life of the chief was greater than his; so he said, as he arose from the couch—for he was much stronger now:

“I will promise you this. Unless I find it absolutely necessary to protect myself or mine, I will try to forego my revenge on Ku-nan-gu-no-nah and leave him to your disposal. Is this satisfactory? I believe you have a better right to kill him than I.”

“Thank ye!” said the big hunter, grasping Darke’s hand and squeezing it almost painfully in his bony fingers. “Thank ye, Mr. Darke. It seems as how I can’t thank ye enough!”

“Never mind the thanks,” said Darke. “I am your debtor. You took me in when—”

“There! that’ll do,” interrupted Leander. “Come.”

As he ceased speaking, he turned and led the way into the inner apartment of the cavern.

Darke felt quite well now, with the exception of an acute pain in his head, and he followed his strange entertainer with no difficulty whatever.

The place where he now found himself resembled the outer cavern a good deal, only it was much smaller and contained a sort of rude fireplace, on the hearth of which a bright fire was blazing merrily, sending showers of sparks up a narrow fissure that served as an outlet for the smoke; in short, it was a natural chimney, and could not have answered its purpose better had it been built up of stone and mortar in the usual way. Another small apartment was curtained off from this in the same manner that the two larger apartments of the cavern were separated from each other, only the curtain of pelts was closely drawn, as if special pains had been taken to shut out the interior from the view of any one in the other part of the cave.

The big hunter motioned Darke to a seat on the stool near the fire, and then, followed by the dwarf, passed into this smaller room, if such it might be called, carefully closing the curtain behind him. Soon Darke heard him say something in a subdued tone that he could not understand. A moment later he caught a few words that caused him to wonder greatly. Evidently there was a mystery connected with the little apartment. He heard the rough voice of the big hunter say:

“Does he show any signs of life yet? Can’t be he’s dead!”

The next moment they returned, but the giant offered no explanation of the mystery, whatever it was, and Darke thought best to act as though he had not overheard the strange words quoted above. A large oaken chest stood nearly in the center of the place; and on its lid Alonphilus had arranged a savory supper of broiled venison.

The brothers each drew a stool up by the side of this strange table, and Leander invited Darke cordially to do the same.

After he had partaken of the food so hospitably proffered by his new-found friends, he announced his intention to depart at once for home. The big hunter told him that it was already growing dark outside, and he knew that he must have been away from Vinnie at least five hours, now; and he feared that she would grow uneasy if he did not return soon.

He thanked the twin avengers for their kindness and was about to go, when he saw Alonphilus raise one end of the chest as if to carry it to some other part of the cavern. He stood close at hand, and he laid hold of the other handle to assist the dwarf in its removal.

They had gone but a few paces, however, when Alonphilus tripped and fell, dropping his part of the burden to the ground; and the sudden jar caused the other handle to slip from Darke’s grasp. The chest overturned, the cover flying back as it did so, and its contents rolled out at the woodman’s feet with a weird, ghastly rattle as it struck the rocky floor. Darke, strong, brave man though he was, started back with a quick, sharp cry of alarm.

White and terrible at his feet, lay _a grinning, horrible skeleton of gigantic proportions_!

“Our secret! Our secret!” cried the big hunter, hoarsely. “You hev diskivered our secret!”