The next moment Lightfoot was beside him, having glided thither like the serpent whose alarum he had usurped. Their heads close together, a few rapid words passed between them.
Lightfoot divulged his plan by which he hoped to baffle the peril that threatened them. It was desperate, but the only one. Alone the men might have crept through the savage cordon; with the women, this was simply impossible.
The Kickapoo turned and glided away, again heading toward the blazing cabin. He used less caution now, for time was doubly precious. The Osages, he knew, could not be many yards from the fugitives.
Gaining several hundred yards, he dashed forward at full speed, running to avoid the trees, stumps and other obstacles by intuition, for eyesight could avail him but little in such darkness. Again he paused, and now uttered a signal. It was answered almost immediately, from in front, to the left and right. His calculations were correct. The time was at hand for his action, nor did he hesitate, though the result could scarcely be other than death.
The bow he slung across his back. One hand clutched a knife, the other a tomahawk. Then he glided forward, direct for the spot from which the center signal had issued. His keen ear had not deceived him.
A tall, dimly outlined figure uprose before him, and uttered a few hasty words in the Pottawatomie dialect. Lightfoot did not wait to understand their meaning. Time was by far too precious.
With the ferocity of a maddened panther he leaped upon the savage, dealing two swift, deadly blows as he did so. Down through flesh and bone sunk the keen hatchet, scattering the skull like an egg-shell—gritting against his breast-bone the long knife.
A husky, gasping sound broke from the stricken brave's lips; it could scarce be called a death-yell. Yet it was heard—it and the furious death-blows, as the quick, sharp exclamations evinced.
Plucking his weapons from their quivering sheath, Lightfoot raised his voice in one loud, clear yell of taunting defiance as he spurned the corpse from him, and plunged into the darkness beyond.
For a moment his enemies stood as if confounded. Something in this bold defiance puzzled them. It seemed the act of a madman, or of one who had some particular point in view that he so daringly invited pursuit.