“Rushing Water is not afraid to die. The words of the Death-Dealer can not frighten him. He will speak the same as though they were not sounding in his ears. The Death-Dealer is a great warrior, but the chief is not a squaw that he should be afraid of his words.”
Mrs. Wilson knelt down by his side and cried, appealingly:
“Where is my daughter? Tell me that she is unharmed, and restore her again to my arms, and no harm shall come to you. Only give her back to us, and we will forgive you the loss of our home, and all else that you have done to us.”
“The pale-face mother can not have her child again. The chief has not the power to give her again into her arms if he would. The Great Spirit has called her home.”
“Oh, Heaven!” cried the agonized mother. “You do not mean to say that she is dead? that you have killed her?”
Ned Tapley drew his knife, and with a face as pale as death, would have sprung forward and plunged it into the heart of the savage, had not the strong arm of the scout held him back.
“Let him speak, youngster,” he said. “If he has harmed so much as a hair of her head, we will have vengeance.”
“The white maiden did not die by my hand,” said the chief, calmly. “The Great Spirit himself called her home. When the daylight came, she lay upon her couch as white and cold as the snow of winter. The Great Spirit himself knows that Rushing Water harmed her not.”
A wail of agony broke from the lips of the parents, and Mrs. Wilson staggered and would have fallen to the earth had not her husband supported her.
“But you killed her as surely as though your hand had plunged a knife into her heart, and for this you shall die!” cried Ned, as he made another effort to deal the helpless savage a blow with his knife. But this he was again prevented from doing by the scout, who exclaimed: