"Miriam," I called, shoving my arm forward and feeling out blindly.
Thereupon, a woman's hand grasped mine and thrust it out, while a voice so low it might have been the night breeze, came to my ear—"We are watched."
Watched? What did it matter if we were? Had I not dared all? Must not she do the same? This was the last chance. We must not be foiled. My horse, I knew, could outrace any cayuse of the Sioux band.
"Miriam," I whispered back, lifting the canvas, "they will take you away to-morrow—my horse is here! Come! We must risk all!"
And I shoved myself bodily in under the tent wall. She was not a hand's length away, sitting with her face to the entrance of Diable's lodge, her figure rigid and tense with fear. In the half light I could discern the great, powerful, angular form of a giantess in the opening. 'Twas the Sioux squaw. Miriam leaned forward to cover the child with a motion intended to conceal me, and I drew quickly out.
I thought I had not been detected; but the situation was perilous enough, in all conscience, to inspire caution, and I was backing away, when suddenly the shadows of two men coming from opposite sides appeared on the white tent, and something sprang upon me with tigerish fury. There was the swish of an unsheathing blade, and I felt rather than saw Le Grand Diable and Louis Laplante contesting over me.
"Never! He's mine, my captive! He stole my saddle! He's mine, I tell you," ground out the Frenchman, throwing off my assailant. "Keep him for the warriors and let him be tortured," urged Louis, snatching at the Indian's arm.
I sprang up. It was Louis, who tripped my feet from under me, and we two tumbled to the bottom of the cliff, while the Indian stood above snarling out something in the Sioux tongue.
"Idiot! Anglo-Saxon ox!" muttered Louis, grappling with me as we fell. "Do but act it out, or two scalps go! I no promise mine when I say I help you, bah——"
That was the last I recall; for I went down head backwards, and the blow knocked me senseless.