"There was a fierce whizz like the rush of an eagle's wing."
He had not long to wait. By and by a low guttural exclamation struck his ear, and his hearing, strung to a marvelously fine point, caught the sound of the soft moccasins on the hard earth. Less than a minute later the form of the Wolf came into the moonlight, as a bather emerges from the side of a lake. Seeing the open ravine at his feet, he stopped, and instantly his companion, Wau-ko-mia-tan, appeared at his side.
They quickly saw that the leap was an easy one.
"Wau-ko-mia-tan will leap across," said that warrior, "then the Wolf will follow; let us lose no time, for the Shawanoe may be gone."
The speaker recoiled a single pace and gathered his muscles for the leap. He took one quick step and made a terrific bound upward and outward, straight for the rocky brink whereon Deerfoot the Shawanoe instantly stepped into the moonlight.
The Winnebago was in mid-air, crouching like a leaper, with his legs gathered under him and his arms at his side, when there was a fierce whiz, like the rush of an eagle's wing, something flashed in the moonlight, and the tomahawk, driven by a lightning-like sweep of the Shawanoe's arm, was buried in the chest of the Winnebago as it would have sunk in so much sodden earth.
An ear-splitting screech burst from the throat of the smitten warrior, who struck the edge of the ravine like a bundle of rags flung thither, and then tumbled to the bottom as dead as the jagged rock on which he lay.
The Wolf stood transfixed, unable to understand what had taken place. Then he saw the figure of the youthful warrior on the other side and heard his voice.