Solomon took the hatchet from his belt and hacked off the end of Red Snout's wooden leg and put it in his coat pocket, saying:
"'From now on a white man can walk in the bush without gittin' his bones picked. Injuns is goin' to be skeered o' us--a few an' I wouldn't be supprised."
When Jack came back with the water, Solomon poured it on the embers, and looked at the swollen form which still seemed to be straining at the green withes of moose wood.
"Nothin' kin be done fer him," said the old scout. "He's gone erway. I tell ye, Jack, it g'in my soul a sweat to hear him dyin'."
A moment of silence full of the sorrow of the two men followed. Solomon broke it by saying:
"That 'ere black pill o' mine went right down into the stummick o' the hill an' give it quite a puke--you hear to me."
They went to the cavern's mouth and looked in.
"They's an awful mess in thar. I don't keer to see it," said Solomon.
Near them they discovered a warrior who had crawled out of that death chamber in the rocks. He had been stunned and wounded about the shoulders. They helped him to his feet and led him away. He was trembling with fear. Solomon found a pine torch, still burning, near where the fire had been. By its light they dressed his wounds--the old scout having with him always a small surgeon's outfit.
"Whar is t' other captive?" he asked in the Indian tongue.