Dave was the first to break the silence.
“Leona,” he said, “I’ve wanted for a long time to tell you how much I cared for you, but I never found the courage to do so until now. I’m only a poor guide, but if you’ll give me your love, I’ll work hard and build up a home for you that one day you won’t be ashamed to share.”
“I should never be ashamed of any home where you are, David,” replied Leona, looking up into her lover’s face, with those trusting blue eyes, so full of innocence and love. “I can not give you what you ask, for it is not mine to give—it is yours already.”
David Reed had never felt so happy, and so the lovers walked on, weaving bright hopes for the future—that future which always looks so bright to those who love.
Dave, so engrossed by the sweet girl at his side, had not noticed a dark figure that moved when they moved, and halted when they halted; and now, as the lovers sat down by the river-bank, hand in hand, and whispered low words of love and of eternal faith, the shadowy figure extended itself flat on the prairie a hundred yards or so from them, and became invisible in the gloom.
A few hundred feet from where the lovers sat was a little thicket of dwarfed oak trees. Concealed behind the thicket from the view of the fort and the wagon-camp, stood a white horse, spotted on the flanks with patches of black. ’Twas the horse of the Indian who had called himself a chief of the Yancton Sioux. As the moon was again obscured by clouds, forth from the little thicket came the Indian himself. Snake-like he crawled toward the lovers, who, listening only to each other, did not dream that danger was nigh. On came the savage, noiseless as a cat. In his hand he carried a long scalping-knife; his face was bedaubed with war-paint, vermilion and white. Every second brought the creeping savage nearer and nearer to the unconscious pair. He had accomplished half the distance between the thicket and the lovers, when for a few moments the moon again struggled forth and threw its beams over the prairie; the savage sunk down in the grass. When the moon was again obscured, he recommenced his onward passage. But if his approach had been unnoticed by the lovers, ’twas not so with the shadowy form on the prairie. That watcher evidently had seen the Indian, for, imitating his motions, he made his way noiselessly through the grass, also toward the lovers. When the savage got within ten feet of Leona and Dave, he paused for a moment, gathered himself together like a cat—he had not noticed the dark form in his rear, so intent was he on his prey—sprung upon Dave and aimed a lightning stroke at his back; but, at that very moment, Dave moved a little to the right, to kiss, for the first time, the upturned lips of Leona—a movement that saved his life, for the knife of the Indian, missing his body, only cut through the loose red shirt. The force of the shock, though, sent Dave headlong off the bank into the river. In a moment the Indian seized Leona, raised her in his arms and was about to fly across the prairie, when the dark shadow which had trailed him in the grass, and which was none other than Abe, the “Crow-Killer,” sprung upon him. The Indian relinquished Leona, who sunk to the ground, to grapple with the “Crow-Killer.” His only object now was to escape, but the grasp of the old Indian-fighter was not easily shaken off. They closed in a fearful struggle; the moon once more shone forth, and they beheld each other’s features; the surprise was mutual.
“The ‘Crow-Killer’!” cried the savage, in the Crow tongue.
“White Vulture!” exclaimed Abe.
“Yes, son of ‘Little Star’,” cried the Indian.
For a moment the grasp of the “Crow-Killer” relaxed; the savage tore himself away and fled across the prairie toward the thicket, where stood his horse. Abe drew a revolver and leveled it at the flying Indian; a moment he covered him with the shining tube; he was in easy range, and the “Crow-Killer” was a dead shot; a moment he held the life of the White Vulture at his mercy; then he slowly dropped the revolver from the poise, muttering: