Josephine Stone screamed and screamed again. He made no attempt to stop her; his low, mocking laugh was her only answer. But over his shoulder she saw that her cries had had the desired result. Five mounted policemen standing in astonishment by their tent on the hill up the lakeshore sprang forward and tore down toward the island.
Ogima Bush with his burden stepped into the stern of a big rowboat, and at his command two of his husky bucks bent over the oars and made the craft fairly shoot across the intervening gap to the mainland. The others of the party had apparently crossed previously.
The bow of the boat was barely beached when Ogima Bush leaped out into the shallow water with the girl. As if by magic the Indian oarsmen disappeared into the curtain of the woods. The Medicine Man followed, tearing through the trees and dense growth as swiftly and skillfully as a flying moose, at the same time protecting her so that not even a branch scratched against her face or caught in her garments.
Far behind she could occasionally catch sounds of the floundering efforts of the pursuing policemen. Twice she tried to cry out to attract their attention, but all her strength seemed to have left her and it was all she could do to ward off a swoon. He seemed to carry her with as great ease as he might a babe, and she had to admit to herself with a certain deference and respect.
The crashings of the policemen through the bush behind them grew fainter and fainter and finally were lost in the distance.
Presently Ogima Bush stepped out upon a winding man-wide trail. He stood listening a moment, then gave vent to three calls like a crow. An answering “caw, caw, caw” came from the right just ahead. The Medicine Man plunged forward.
Another turn brought them to what was to Josephine Stone more familiar territory. They were on the trail that led across Solomon Creek to the foot of the cliffs of Nannabijou. She saw that they had come by a more difficult but much shorter route than the one by which she and Louis Hammond had come up the day previous. At the approach to the creek bridge four Indians stepped out each holding a handle of a crude sedan built of poles and cedar boughs. Muttering low commands in the Objibiway tongue, the Medicine Man placed Josephine Stone on the cross-seat fashioned between the two main poles. The girl recognised the folly of offering further resistance to her captors; her only resource now, she knew, was to await a strategic moment for escape. At a grunt from Ogima Bush the carriers plunged forward and across the bridge with their burden, the Medicine Man striding behind them.
The young woman experienced a distinct sense of relief at being free from the encircling arms of the grisly Indian. She now had opportunity of scrutinising the four carriers. They were not any of them the same Indians as those who had accompanied the Medicine Man to her cottage. Each of these men wore a single eagle’s feather in his hair, similar to the one affected by the Medicine Man. The girl remembered that the single feather was the insignia of chiefship and that no red man save a witch doctor or headman of the tribe dared venture into the zone of the Cup of Nannabijou, whose black cliffs frowned menacingly upon her from above.
III
Josephine Stone’s feelings were a mixture of wonder and apprehension as the strange-looking party crossed Solomon Creek, toiled up the trail and finally debouched into the passageway in the cliffs that led to the tunnel she and Hammond had visited.