Water was dashed over the fuel until the pile gleamed frostily in the fading rays. A fiery death for his captive was no part of Oskelano's plan. He had discovered that suffocation was more effective and less rapid than the flames.
Tree and victim became soon hidden in a dense column of cloud, the doctors resumed their march, the guard followed, the two sachems brought up the rear, discussing their proposed attack as indifferently as though that mighty pillar of smoke pouring upward in the still evening air out of the plain of sage-brush had no existence in fact.
Well-laid as was the cruel Algonquin's plan, he had not the wisdom to guard against that element of the improbable which rarely fails to enter into, and mar the working of, the best-contrived plot.
A maid had concealed herself in the bush until the camp became clear. Then she came forth and ran like the wind, but stopped upon the plain with a cry of terror when she beheld an old man, who hobbled painfully through the brush. The ancient turned, suspicious of every sound, but when he saw the girl his dry face broke into a weird smile.
"Hasten, child," he quavered, leaning heavily upon his staff. "The Mother of God forgets not the good done by man or maid."
He dropped a knife at her feet. The girl caught it up and sped onward like a deer.
The old man was a Christian. The maid was heathen. Old mind and young working independently, the former actuated by the religion of altruism, the latter wrought upon by nature, had entertained in secret the self-same plan of rescuing the young Englishman from his terrible plight.