The child, frightened at the war cry, turned, and beholding the savage, sank upon her knees, holding up her hands in supplication.
What she said Tommy could not hear, but even at the distance he was from her he fancied he saw her lips move. Possibly she begged for mercy, possibly she prayed for help.
The cruel tomahawk, however, cut short her prayers, or her supplications, and sank deep into her brain, causing her to die without another word.
A fiendish laugh came from the Indian. His knife was instantly in requisition, and with a dexterity born of practice, he cut off her beautiful, flowing hair. He had murdered the poor child for her scalp.
Burning with rage and indignation, Tommy bounded over the ground, and when he got near enough he sank on one knee. Raising his pistol he fired. The Indian was hit, but not mortally.
He uttered a howl like that of a wild beast, and looked for his enemy, who was not so much hidden in the sage bark and chaparral as to be invisible.
But before he could load his rifle another shot from Tommy brought him to his knee, and a third rolled him over like a bullock.
The Indian appeared to be dead, but to make sure that the life had really left the wretch, Tommy struck him again and again with his own tomahawk, which he picked up from the ground, and hacked at him as he would have cut a mad dog or a venomous reptile.
"Poor child," he said, as he stooped down and kissed the blood-stained features of little Alice. "This is very hard. I would have gladly laid down my life to save hers, but it is one comfort that her young life is avenged on the person of this bloodthirsty savage."
Alice was quite dead. Near the spot where she fell was a cairn or heap of stones. Strangely enough it chanced that this cairn was the one erected by Smithers over the body of his son Harold, whom he had so cruelly killed on this very spot.