It was late in the afternoon of an ideal Indian summer day that Lone-Elk returned to the Delaware town. He brought bullets and this time powder also. Only a shrug of his bare shoulders marked his interest in the news when told that the “witch” was captured; that Little Paleface was even at the moment safely held captive beyond all possibility of escape.
He did not so much as go to see and gloat over the unhappy prisoner; but a murderous gleam came in his eyes and he told Neohaw and several others that the stake and the fire would be the “witch’s” portion when Captain Pipe came. He would not execute the death sentence before the chief’s return, for then they would have a celebration which would be a lesson to all the Palefaces for many days to come, just as the burning of the “White Chief,” Crawford, had been.
Nevertheless Lone-Elk quickly laid his plans to torture and torment the young captive, and to instill in the minds of all the Delawares a hatred of every Paleface, and a belief in the certain ease with which their country might be rid of them. He arranged a war dance. Every warrior, every buck and brave in the village answered his summons. Gentle Maiden guessed at once the meaning of it all, as in the early twilight the fighting men of her father’s people began to gather. It was useless for her to remonstrate, and as the fierce, sharp cries that accompanied the horrid dance swelled in volume and in number, John himself was scarcely more apprehensive of the outcome than was she.
Bound and round the campfire the savages danced. Their contortions of face and body, their violent shrieks and awful fervor were terrible to look upon. Fiercest of all was Lone-Elk. Louder than all the others was the war-whoop of the Seneca, and at midnight he had wrought to the highest pitch of bloodthirsty ardor every Delaware participating in the horrible revelry.
“Come!” called the outcast loudly at last, “Come! Will the Delawares close their eyes in sleep when so near them is a house of the Palefaces? A house that will draw others to it till the forests of the Indians are all cut down and they themselves driven away and killed? Come! Who will come with Lone-Elk!”
A fierce chorus of war cries greeted his words. Drunk with excitement, the Delawares paused not to consider. With terrible yells they surged after the Seneca and like a shrieking band of fiends hurried rapidly through the moonlit forest.
“Hold! Let the Delawares bring the Paleface witch!” cried Lone-Elk. “Let the murderer of the brave Big Buffalo see the nest where birds of his kind are hatched go up in fire!”
No sooner said than done. A dozen of the fiercest of the band, mad with the passions that had been aroused within them, rushed back and in five minutes came dragging John Jerome after them. By a rope around his body, and by another about his neck, they both drove and pulled him. Their awful yells could have been heard for miles.
Following the portage trail to its end and crossing the river, the savages broke into the clearing about the cabin a little further on at a run. Up the hill they went and with whooping and yelling of impassioned fury they attacked the cabin, so humble, so quiet and so home-like and unoffending in its appearance that its destruction seemed the foulest crime in all of border warfare’s awful annals.
With tomahawks the door was beaten in, though but to have pulled the string would have raised the latch, and the mad race of pillage and plunder began. Everything breakable was thrown down and destroyed. Table, stools, bedding and all the little conveniences that Ree and John had been at such pains to plan and construct were thrown indiscriminately about.