"Come on, boys, come on!"
There by the roadside stood a tall, powerful-looking man, bending over the missing trunk. Quick as thought they surrounded him. He stood firm and erect. He moved not an inch, nor manifested any desire to escape, and as they closed in upon him, to their amazement they found it was Machecawa. In his left hand was a scalp of long auburn hair; in his right was a bag of gold, which he held up triumphantly.
"Eenglishman, he no rob White Chief no more," he said, his dark eyes flashing in the dim light of the lanterns. "Eenglishman, he no burn White Chief's mills no more. Eenglishman, he no tie White Chief's girl to tree no more," and he shook the auburn hair and danced round the box in high glee.
The Chief was stunned. Visions of the decapitated Wrenford rose up before him. He stood gazing at the Indian with mingled feelings of horror at the atrocious crime he had evidently committed, and of incredulity as to the veracity of the charges brought against his unfortunate clerk.
Machecawa advanced, and laying his hand upon the Chief's shoulder, explained that he was crossing the road, when he observed a man climb on to the rack behind the waggon, sever the ropes that bound the trunk securely, and deliberately throw it into a mossy bank, after which he let himself down gently and proceeded to force open the lock.
"He was looking in the box," said Machecawa, "when I pounced on him and grabbed him by the hair, which came off in my hands."
He then passed it round as an object of curiosity, and after examining it closely, the Chief said, with a sigh of relief:
"It is a wig, boys, only a wig. Let us trust that the poor fellow has escaped the scalping-knife after all."
"More's the pity," growled one of the men.
The Indian proceeded with his story. Wrenford escaped to the woods, followed by himself in hot pursuit, and just as he was about to step into a canoe at the river's bank the Indian captured him and tied him to a tree, while he overturned the canoe on shore, emptying it of all its contents. Then, placing his pistol at Wrenford's clean-shaven head, he said: