The aborigines, like all barbarians and many civilized people, are cruel by nature. The Wyandots, who had secured Deerfoot, refrained from killing him for no other reason than that it would have been greater mercy than they were willing to show to one whom they held in such detestation.
As it was, two of them struck him and repeated the taunting names uttered when they first laid hands on him. Deerfoot still made no answer, though his dark eyes flashed with a dangerous light when he looked in the faces of the couple who inflicted the indignity.
He asked them quietly to help him along, but, with another taunt, the whole eight refused. The one who had smote him twice and who held his bow, placed his hand against the shoulder of the youth and gave him a violent shove. Deerfoot went several paces and then fell on his knees and hands with a gasp of pain severe enough to make him faint.
The others laughed, as he painfully labored to his feet. He then asked that he might have his bow to use as a cane; but even this was refused. Finding nothing in the way of assistance was to be obtained, his proud spirit closed his lips, and he limped forward, scarcely touching the great toe of the injured limb to the ground.
The brief flight and pursuit had led the parties so far down the Licking that they were out of sight of the block-house, quite a stretch of forest intervening; but it had also taken them nearer the headquarters, as they may be called, of Waughtauk, leader of the Wyandots besieging Fort Bridgman.
This sachem showed, in a lesser way, something of the military prowess of Pontiac, chief of the Chippewas, King Philip of Pokanoket, and Tecumseh, who belonged to the same tribe with Deerfoot.
Although his entire force numbered a little more than fifty, yet he had disposed them with such skill around the block-house that the most experienced of scouts failed to make his way through the lines.
Waughtauk was well convinced of the treachery of the Shawanoe, and there was no living man for whom he would have given a greater amount of wampum.
The eyes of the chieftain sparkled with pleasure when the youthful warrior came limping painfully toward him, escorted by the Wyandots, as though they feared that, despite his disabled condition, he might dart off with the speed of the wind.
Waughtauk rose from the fallen tree on which he had been seated among his warriors, and advanced a step or two to meet the party as it approached.