Jack let her cry on. Always he had despised boys who cried, and Alagwa was bigger than any boy he had ever seen with tears in his eyes. Yet, somehow, he felt only pity for her.
“Poor little chap,” he murmured again. “You’ve had an awful day of it, haven’t you? You ought to be asleep this very moment instead of sitting up here talking to a chump like me. Come! let me help you into the wagon.” He rose, drawing the girl to her feet beside him. “Come,” he repeated.
But Alagwa held back. “You—you will not leave me at Fort Wayne?” she begged. “You will take me with you. I—I can help you find the girl.”
Jack started. “By Jove! So you can!” he exclaimed. “All right. We’ll leave it so. If we don’t find your friends you shall stay with me. Now you must go to bed and to sleep.”
CHAPTER IX
ALAGWA went to rest willingly enough, but for a long time she did not sleep. She was thinking of what Jack had said about the ammunition that he was taking to Fort Wayne and of its importance to the garrison there. If she could destroy it or give it over to the Indians she would have done much to carry out her pledge to Tecumseh. Carefully, she felt the boxes on which she lay, only to find their tops nailed hard and fast, far beyond the power of her slender fingers to loosen.
Could she get word to the runner? She was sure he was near. Perhaps there were others with him. Perhaps they could capture or destroy the wagon. It would cost Jack his life; she knew that and was sorry for it, but the fact did not make her pause. Against his life stood the lives of dozens of her people, who would be slain by this ammunition. No! The white men had dug up the tomahawk; and Jack and they must take the consequences.
But how could she get word to the runner? The camp was guarded. Dimly, she could descry Jack’s form against the limestone boulder on which she and he had sat and talked. Instinctively she knew that he would not sleep, and she knew, too, that the runner was not likely to appear unless she summoned him. And she saw no way to summon him without betraying herself and wrecking her mission without gain. Vainly her tired brain fluttered. At last, wearied out, she lay quiescent, determined to watch and wait. Perhaps a chance might come.
For hours she forced herself to lie awake. But she had not counted on the weakness due to her loss of blood and on the insistent demand of her nature for sleep to replenish the drain. Fight against it as she might, sleep crept upon her, insistent, not to be denied. Heavier and heavier grew her eyelids, and though again and again she forced them back, in time nature would no longer be denied.
When she waked darkness was about her. For an instant she thought she was back in the Indian lodge at Wapakoneta. Then the patch of moonlit sky that showed at the foot of the wagon caught her eyes and told her the truth.