CHAPTER XII.

NOT YET! NOT YET!

When the door of the strong lodge again closed on Oonalooska and the hermit, the former thrust something into the latter’s hands.

The fingers clutched it with eagerness. It was the hilt of a long-bladed knife!

“Where did you get this, chief?” asked the hermit, in a low tone, which, to the listening guards beyond the wall, was a confused murmur.

“When Alaska took the young white hunter to her lodge, Okolona’s hand thrust the knife into his son’s fingers. Ah! big hunter, the old Medicine loves his boy!”

“And I thank God for that love,” fervently responded Hewitt. “With this knife we can cut the thick bark above our heads, and the caged birds will be free again. Oonalooska, we must first get beyond the Shawnees’ lodge, before we can help the young hunter and the girl.”

The Indian acknowledged the giant’s argument.

“Then let us escape to-night, and before another moon we will return and rescue our friends. Alaska will not harm that chap till his wounds have healed, and they will not heal for two moons to come.”

“Oonalooska and the Lone Man must lie in the strong lodge until another darkness,” replied the Indian.

“Why?” disappointedly questioned Hewitt.

“Tecumseh’s braves will not sleep to-night. They stand around this lodge, and when another darkness comes they will not guard so well. Oonalooska knows this, for he has been a guard himself.”

Against his impatience, the hermit acquiesced in the Shawnee’s words, and, hiding the knife, they threw themselves upon the ground and went to sleep.

To say that Jim Girty was chagrined over the unexpected drift of affairs, would not express the state of his mind.

He was furious--almost beside himself with rage. He appreciated Tecumseh’s interference, which saved his life, and he knew that the chief had canceled the debt he owed him. Now Tecumseh owed him nothing, and _vice versa_. Though thrown again upon his own resources, he did not despair of ultimate success. In all his life his plots had never entirely failed, and whenever his feet touched the sands of the gulf of adversity, he always hoped for, plotted for, a brighter finale.

To the renegade every cloud had a silver lining, which sometimes his short-sightedness would not permit him to see.

He was angry at Laulewasikaw for the loss of Newaska, his trustiest brave, his keenest spy, and when the Prophet would enter his tent that night, after the scene in the wood, he waved him back.

“Let Laulewasikaw return to his lodge on the Miami,” he said. “The White Chief is inconsolable for the loss of Newaska, who would still have lived, had the Prophet not come.”

The words that flowed from the renegade’s lips, seemed steeped in gall, and when he had finished, the Prophet, whose sensibilities ofttimes a single word could wound, drew back from Girty, and fastened his dark orbs upon his face, pale with rage, in the soft starlight.

“Laulewasikaw has served the White Chief and well,” he said slowly, uttering every syllable distinctly. “He will serve him no longer. Henceforth let the White Chief shut his mouth to the great Prophet. Laulewasikaw could tell the Shawnees that the Great Spirit demanded the White Chief’s heart, and they would take it. But the Prophet turns not upon the adder that he has warmed in his bosom. If it can be guilty of ingratitude, Laulewasikaw spurns it,” and without another word, he turned away, and sought Greenville.

“Go!” hissed Girty, “I can git along without you. I know you took me to your lodge when you found me drunk and freezing to death, thirty odd years ago, but I’ve paid you, old devil, for that. I gave you a barrel of whisky which more than canceled _that_ debt. Yes, yes, old fellow, we’re square.”

Finished speaking, he passed the guards and entered the lodge where, for a moment, he listened to the regular breathings of a slumbering person, beyond a partition of skins.

“I’ve half a mind to--,” and he suddenly rose from his couch, and stepped toward the curtains. “No,” and he paused as abruptly as he had risen, “if I can’t eucher all my enemies, both red and white, then I’ll have recourse to the knife. I might kill her now, and beat them to-morrow. Then I’d be in a pretty fix, wouldn’t I? I’ve always come out best in the end,” and with this he resought his couch.

Nothing of interest transpired in the Shawnee village the day that followed the night of thrilling scenes. Jim Girty moved about among the lodges as though nothing unusual had occurred; but Tecumseh’s warriors noticed that he kept quite a distance from the Wolf-Queen’s wigwam. He feared that the sight of his repulsive form would throw the mad-woman into a frenzy, which might result fatally to him.

Around the strong lodge stood Tecumseh’s trustiest braves--men whom he dared not approach--and he must seek the hearts of the prisoners, if he sought them at all, by proxy. He tried to fathom Tecumseh’s feelings toward him, but, while the chief spoke friendly, Girty noticed something lurking behind his manner--something indicative of hatred.

The interview was not prolonged, for so soon as he had felt the chief’s heart, he returned to his lodge.

“I have it at last!” and a minute later he darted from his wigwam, much to the surprise of the guards. “I will make mad the hearts of Nethoto and Sagasto’s squaws, and by heaven! they will tear the captives from Alaska. Tecumseh _dare_ not interfere, then,” and with this new idea from his internal prompter, he hurried toward the lodges of the widowed squaws.

* * * * *

To the hermit and Oonalooska the night seemed a long while coming.

They sat in the demi-gloom of the prison cabin, and watched the rise and fall of the god of day. True to the Shawnee’s words, the savages relaxed their vigilance, and long ere the shades of night fell, a portion of the guard were withdrawn, which action left but three on duty.

“Now for freedom, Oona,” said Hewitt, feeling about in the gloom till his hand touched the savage, who was listening to the conversation of the guards without the hut. “The Indians are recounting their brave deeds, eh? Well, they’ll get to fighting over them after a while; but we’ll not stay to hear the thumps.”

The Shawnee turned from the door, and a minute later, standing upon the giant hermit’s shoulders, he was cutting a hole in the bark above their heads.

To the noisy guard the knife made no noise, and at length Oonalooska sprung to the ground.

Hewitt looked up, and saw the stars through the aperture.

“Now, Oona,” he said, clambering toward the perforated roof, “I’ll go first, and you may follow.”

The escape from the cabin was effected without discovery, and the twain moved off in the brilliant starlight.

“I’d like to take the boy with us,” whispered the hermit; “but he could never be rescued from that mad-woman and her wolves. By and by we’ll come back, Oona, and catch the boy out o’ her fingers somewhere. I tell you ’twould be impossible to take him from the animal’s jaws.”

“Alaska’s children have sharp teeth,” responded Oonalooska, in the low tone that characterized the hermit’s words, “and they know how to use them. When the Lone Man and Oonalooska return, Okalona will get the boy to the edge of the Shawnees’ town.”

Across spots where no shadows fell, the twain were forced to crawl on all-fours, and at length found themselves near the confines of the village.

“Let’s rise now,” whispered Hewitt; “that long crawl has cramped me, and my legs feel as heavy as stones.”

The brave whispered approvingly, and Hewitt sprung to his feet. “Free at last!” he uttered, in an audible tone, for they were fully thirty feet from the nearest lodge, and in the shade.

The next instant the Indian grasped his arm, and pulled him to the earth.

“What’s up, Oona? I--”

The sight that greeted the hermit’s vision promptly terminated the sentence he was framing.

In the starlight just upon the edge of the shade, as though they had suddenly risen from the earth, stood Alaska and a gigantic wolf.

Her appearance, so sudden, so unexpected, and at such a time and place, startled the hermit, and he grasped the Indian’s hand, mutely appealing for a solution of the mystery.

Oonalooska was calm.

“Alaska has been to the forest,” he said. “See, her arms are full of plants. They are for the hunter’s wounds. She never gathers plants when the sun is in the sky. The sun dries their sap, and beneath the stars it runs like water.”

“Has she seen us?” queried the hermit.

“She stopped when the Lone Man said ‘Free at last!’” responded the Indian. “Oonalooska saw Letheto prick up his long ears. She sees us now!”

“Then we are hers,” said Hewitt, with despair in his tones.

“No, no,” returned the Indian. “When Oonalooska was a boy, his father taught him to throw the knife. He has not forgotten those lessons. He will throw the knife into Alaska’s heart; then we can frighten Letheto away.”

When the Indian finished he caught the knife by the tip of the dagger-like blade, and drew back for the death-blow.

The mad queen stood scarce twenty feet from them, with her eyes fixed upon their forms. But she could not note their actions, for the shade in which they crouched was too gloomy to be minutely penetrated by the naked eye.

Strange emotions swayed the hermit’s form while he gazed upon Alaska, and listened to Oonalooska’s plan for their escape. One blow would insure their freedom, and rid them of the greatest foe they possessed; but Hewitt vowed that that blow should not be given.

Therefore, when the Indian’s muscles flew to the work of speeding the knife to Alaska’s heart, Hewitt’s hand closed around his wrist.

“What means the white man?” questioned Oonalooska, throwing a strange look into the giant’s eyes. “Is his head cracked?”

“No, no,” he answered, calmly. “Long ago the Lone Man loved a woman who looked like poor Alaska; but she has long been absent from him. Oonalooska shall not throw the knife. If he would escape, let him glide away. I will become her prisoner. Perhaps--yes, yes, she may be--”

He said no more, for the Wolf Queen was approaching them.

“Oonalooska pities the Lone Man,” said the Indian. “He will remain with him, though his path leads from freedom to the stake.”

They rose to their feet, and, with a word to the wolf, Alaska sprung forward.

“Ha! ha! ha!” she laughed, not in anger, but in triumph, “the Great Spirit has guided Oonalooska and the Lone Man to Alaska. The Great Spirit is good to poor Alaska; he guided her little boy to her lodge, and she is happy once more. She will take the pale-face and red-skin back to the strong lodge.”

At her bidding, our friends turned toward their prison again.

As they walked through the rays of the morn that had just clambered over the eastern hills, Hewitt studied the face of the Wolf-Queen. The scrutiny took him back to the days of his youth, and, in vision, he saw the face that he had kissed at the altar.

The Indian walked along, dogged and sullen.

When they reached the prison, the guards stared aghast at the scene, and Alaska harshly upbraided them for their negligence. And when the twain found themselves once more beyond the threshold of the hut, an Indian looked down upon them from the hole in the roof!

Alaska slowly returned to her lodge, seemingly unconscious of her work.

“Beaten by a crazy woman!” hissed a man, as he stepped from the shadow of a lodge not far from the prison structure. “Oh, if I had known that Alaska was abroad--but then--then all her wolves were not with her! Curse her tricks! I wish they were dead! But I’ve arranged things for your digestion, my beaten chappies!” and his eyes fell upon the prison lodge. “I’ve inflamed the vengeful passions of the widowed squaws, and at any hour they may take you from your prison and tear your hearts out. I’ll begin on you, and finish on Alaska and the weakling. Oh, I’m a devil, I am!”

And with a fiendish expression darkening his face, he sneaked toward his own lodge.