CHAPTER X.

THE FATE OF WELL-LAID PLANS.

“Newaska is welcome to Alaska’s lodge,” and the mad queen smiled as she led the young sub-chief to a couch of skins. “A moon has faded since he darkened Alaska’s door and her children have looked a long time for him in vain. See how glad they are to meet him!”

The brave stroked the shaggy backs of the animals that gathered around, manifesting signs of joy at his return, and the Wolf-Queen looked admiringly on.

“When do the pale-faces die?” asked Alaska.

“When the Manitou trims his fires,” replied Newaska. “The White Chief has promised to tell Alaska when the hour comes.”

“The White chief is a serpent,” hissed the mad-woman. “If he could, he would deceive Alaska, but she will triumph over him at last. Newaska, whence came the giant hunter?”

“From his hole in the ground, as Alaska well knows,” was the reply.

“Alaska knows that, but whence came he _to_ his hole in the earth?”

“Newaska knows not. Why does Alaska ask?”

The queen pressed her hands against her temples, and for a long time was silent, while the light of reason illumined her countenance.

It surprised Newaska.

“Oh, once Alaska’s head was not sore,” she said, expressing insanity in her feeble way. “A long time--many moons ago, she saw eyes as black as the big hermit’s. Alaska had a little boy once. But see! dark shadows flit apast Alaska’s door.” Thus suddenly interrupting herself, she drew aside the curtain of skins that served for a door, and beheld a gang of women and children hurrying toward the northern confines of the village.

“Whither go the squaws and young warriors of the Shawnees?” she asked, turning suddenly upon Newaska. “Do they seek the stakes?”

“No,” answered the Shawnee, “they go to the wood to cut boughs for their fires. Did Alaska not notice that each squaw, and even the young Shawnees, bore a knife?”

“Alaska’s eyes were not shut,” the Wolf-Queen replied, not satisfied--as her manner indicated--with Newaska’s artful answer. “Alaska will go abroad--for the White Chief may _forget_ to tell me when they lead the captives to the trees.”

“Let Alaska remain,” cried the deputed poisoner, springing to his feet and grasping the mad queen’s arm. “If Alaska will retire to her sleeping room, Newaska will go and discover when they lead the prisoners forth. The White Chief would be angry, were our queen to seek him ere he put on his torture dress. Will Alaska obey Newaska?”

“Yes,” was the reply, and the fire in her eyes suddenly went out.

“Alaska will remain in her sleeping-room till Newaska returns. He can take her wolves with him if he chooses. They will follow Newaska.”

“Newaska will take the wolves,” said the brave, as Alaska disappeared beyond the skin partition that divided the two apartments. “But first he will put a collar on Letheto.”

The treacherous red-skin possessed the Wolf-Queen’s entire confidence, and, under pretext of collaring Letheto, he prepared for his work.

He first stepped to the door and heard the tramp of the band that bore the doomed captives to the fatal trees that crowned the hills above the “town.”

“Newaska must to work,” he muttered, “and when the White Chief passes the wigwam he will join him.”

He drew the meat from his pouch, and threw it before the mad queen’s wolves. With one accord, the lupine band dashed for it, and one of the largest secured it. The effect began immediately, for the wolf retired to one corner of the room and laid down. Another piece of meat quickly followed the first, and a second wolf slunk from the gang, never to rejoin it again.

Not a sound came from the apartment to which Alaska had retired, and the prisoner congratulated himself on his success.

“Here, Letheto,” he called to the fiercest of the wolves, extending a hunk of the poisoned venison to the monster creature. “Newaska--”

There was a sudden parting of the curtains, and the wolves mistress appeared!

“Why tarries Newaska in Alaska’s lodge?” she demanded, gazing upon the savage’s fearful face, revealed by the light thrown out from the dying fire in the center of the lodge. “Ha! he fears Alaska’s wolves. Does he not know that no hand save Alaska’s shall give them meat?”

Before an answer could be framed, a terrible light shot from the mad queen’s distended eyes, and her bony hand closed on the prisoner’s throat.

A cry, half-shriek, half-groan, welled from Newaska’s heart, as the fingers tightened on his throat, and he felt himself hurled back.

The next moment several heavy weights fell upon him; he felt dreadful fangs pulling at his throat; then sense left him; he gasped once or twice, a tremor crept over his frame, and life was ended for Newaska.

Alaska tried to save the young chief when it was too late--when Letheto’s sharp teeth had severed his jugulars, for it seemed that not until then did she recognize his danger.

“See!” she cried, as she tore the wolves from the inanimate but still warm body, “he killed two of Alaska’s children! He killed them with his meat! Oh, why did the Great Spirit permit this? Alaska never harmed Newaska! When he became one of White Chief’s braves, she did not say no. White Chief! Oh, he did this--he, the child of Watchemenetoc.”

As she finished, she caught the two dead wolves in her arms, and darted from the lodge.

Beyond its portals she paused, and a minute later was about to dart toward the renegade’s lodge, when voices came to her ears from the hills to her right.

“They are at the trees!” she cried. “White Chief’s knife shall not strip the captives’ skins off. Alaska’s head is hot now, and her wolves must drink of the white man’s blood.”

The last sentence was uttered while she bounded from the village, followed by the nine remaining wolves of her once invincible band.

* * * * *

“Strip the white louts!” commenced Jim Girty, furious with hellish anticipation, as he halted on one of the wooded hills crowned by a large concourse of women and children, whose whetted knives and repulsive faces told how eager they were to dye their hands in the captives’ blood.

To the waists our three friends were hurriedly stripped, and bound to as many trees.

The squaws had built several large fires, which lent a tragic coloring that is indescribable to the nocturnal scene, and it was with great difficulty on the part of Girty and the Prophet, that they could be restrained from rushing upon the prisoners in a body and hacking them to pieces. But the renegade threw a line of warriors between them and the trees, and impatiently awaited the completion of the stripping process.

“Now!” he shouted, with fiendish glee, springing forward at last with the saw-blade flashing above his head, “I will skin the Giant devil, and then the Shawnees can torture the red traitor, and the weakling!”

Hewitt regarded the renegade with a calm look, as he strode forward, hissing his triumph from between clenched teeth.

“I told you so, you giant white dog. Now for a square inch of your accursed hide.”

The ragged blade descended; it had touched Hewitt’s breast, and was red with his blood, when a shout greeted the renegade’s ears.

“Alaska!”

A frightful oath, that would have shamed devils, shot from Jim Girty’s lips, and, as he turned with crimsoned blade, he saw the crowd making way for the mad queen, clothed in a passion born in Pandemonium.

He turned to the Prophet with a mute appeal for aid, but Laulewasikaw shrunk from the crazy woman, and hid himself behind a tree.

The Shawnees had never beheld Alaska in such a frenzy and, with shrieks, they fled from her, as though she were living contagion.

Even the bravest warrior fled like a frightened deer, and the forest resounded with flying footsteps.

Jim Girty could not fly. The sight of the mad-woman riveted him to the spot, and his knees smote one another, even as Belshazzar’s smote at his doom on the palace walls.

Suddenly at his feet Alaska threw the poisoned wolves, and fastened her gaze upon his icy face, where cold sweatdrops were forming.

“The White Chief sent Newaska with poisoned meat to Alaska’s lodge!” she hissed. “There lies Newaska’s work! The red snake lies in Alaska’s wigwam, with great holes in his throat.”

As she spoke, she neared Girty, holding a writhing wolf above her head.

“Letheto’s fangs shall kiss each other in White Chief’s throat!” she continued, and the wolf was lowered.

With his eyes starting from their sockets, Girty, devoid of volition, awaited his doom.

The wolf’s hot breath almost scorched his face, and, as the jaws flew open to close on his throat, Tecumseh sprung to Alaska’s side.

The renegade drew a breath of relief.

“Alaska must not slay the White Chief,” said the sachem, calmly meeting the fiery gaze she shot at him.

“Why?”

“Long ago he snatched Tecumseh’s son from the waves of the Scioto.”

Almost instantly the frenzy abated, which was a wonderful proof of the influence Tecumseh possessed over poor, mad Alaska.

“Alaska loves Tecumseh,” she said; “but the captives?” and her eyes fell upon the trio at the trees.

Tecumseh’s gaze followed the mad queen’s, but he said nothing.

“Let them be Alaska’s prisoners,” suddenly cried the Wolf-Queen. “Let them return to the strong lodge, and when Alaska has mourned for her two children, killed by Newaska, she will deal with them.”

“Thus it shall be,” said Tecumseh, and, at his command, the three prisoners were taken from the stakes.

Theirs was a miraculous escape, and Hewitt saw a kind light in Tecumseh’s eyes, as he turned toward the village.

Unknown to the renegade, Tecumseh and his body-guard of tried braves had glided into the forest, for the purpose, if it were possible, to save the captives from the terrible death, so against his feelings.

“We’re free, yet prisoners, boy,” whispered Hewitt to Fairfax, as he walked along. “But so long as that Jim Girty lives our lives hang on threads. I wish he’d let Tecumseh’s little greaser drown, and then Alaska would have killed him. Did the devils tear your linen off when they stripped me?”

“Yes; but I don’t mind it,” said Mayne, with a smile. “Our escape drives my hurts from my mind. I am saved for Eudora yet.”

The hermit sighed audibly, and called Tecumseh to his side.

He pointed to our hero’s wound.

“It shall be dressed,” said the chief, and he threw his blanket over Mayne’s shoulders, for the night-air was chilling.

Alaska witnessed the humane action.

“The young hunter shall go to Alaska’s lodge,” she said, springing to Mayne’s side. “She will cure him, and make him fat for her wolves.”

A shiver crept to the young man’s heart.

“Don’t say no, boy,” whispered Hewitt. “Good’ll come of it. Go with the poor creature, and mebbe she’ll change her mind, and make you her boy. Crazy people take strange notions sometimes.”