Black Harry’s indiscretion, however, at this juncture spoilt Moose’s plan of surprising the Indians and effecting their object without bloodshed. As they approached nearer the light that glimmered from amid the trees, they could see that three Indians were seated round it, while close adjoining them was poor Sailor Bill lashed tightly to a tree, like a poor lamb that was to be slaughtered in some butcher’s shop.
The sight was too much for the unthinking but gallant seaman, so, despite Mr Rawlings’ strict injunctions to the contrary, he levelled his rifle and fired point-blank into the group of Indians huddled over the fire.
The savages started up with a yell of alarm; and, seizing their arms hurriedly, one of them darted towards the motionless figure of Sailor Bill with an uplifted hatchet in his hand.
At that moment Mr Rawlings, seeing the imminent jeopardy of the boy, fired, and the Indian’s arm fell as if broken by the bullet, the hatchet dropping from his hand; in another second, however, the savage picked up the weapon again and would have brained Sailor Bill, being in the act of hurling it at him with a malignant aim, when Wolf, who had stolen forward at the first outburst, dashed at the Indian’s throat with a low growl of vengeance, and brought him to the ground.
“Don’t kill them!” shouted Mr Rawlings, in a voice that made itself heard above the mêlée; and after a brief struggle, the two remaining Indians were secured and firmly bound, although it took all Black Harry’s strength to overcome the one he grappled, who turned out to be the chief of the party, while the one Wolf had brought down suffered terribly from the grip of the dog on his throat.
After all had cooled down from the contest, which had lasted some little time, Mr Rawlings directed Moose to ask the Indian chief—who, the half-breed said, was a leading warrior of the Sioux tribe, rejoicing in the sounding title of “Rising Cloud,”—why he had attacked an innocent settler and miner like Seth Allport, and stolen away the boy that was with him?
The Indian, however, did not seem to require the services of an interpreter, for he answered Mr Rawlings as if he thoroughly comprehended the gist of the question Moose was deputed to ask him.
“Paleface lie!” he said angrily, in broken English, which he mastered much better indeed than the half-breed did in his half-Spanish patter. “Rising Cloud was hunting on the lands of his tribe when tall paleface hunter shoot him as if he were a beast of the forest. The red man isn’t a dog to be trodden on, so he gave the paleface a lesson, to remind him Rising Cloud could have killed him if he had willed it.”
“But why steal the boy?” asked Mr Rawlings, thinking that perhaps the Indian had some right on his side in assailing Seth after he had fired at him first.
“Boy jump at Rising Cloud like grizzly bear. Boy grow up fine warrior. Rising Cloud take him to his wigwam to make him big Sioux chief by-and-by and fight the paleface dogs.”