At this moment a cry came from the forest. The Osages answered it. A few minutes later, a considerable body of Indians—both Osages and Pottawatomies—entered the village. One approached and spat in Lightfoot's face. It was the White Wolf—Seth Grable.
Making no reply, the Kickapoo glanced quickly around. A ferocious fire filled his eye as he caught a glimpse of a white woman being led into a cabin. In the firelight, her hair, floating loosely over her shoulder, shone with a golden gleam.
The savages gathered together, and the White Wolf addressed them in hot, forcible words. Others followed him, the majority supporting his argument.
Lightfoot listened to them, his features composed and cold. Though his life swung in the balance, he appeared to take no interest in the matter.
Grable called for the outcast's immediate death—his death by the fire-torture. In answer to those who advocated delay until the entire tribe were assembled, he pointed out the great esteem—almost adoration—in which Lightfoot had been held by his tribe before his recent sentence, and hinted that the Kickapoos might interfere to save him, when the Osages who had fallen by the traitor's hand must go unavenged.
This argument carried the day, and in the blood-thirsty yells of the savages Lightfoot read his doom.
The warriors who held him now securely bound him to a post, then hastened off to assist in the preparations for the torture. Lightfoot strained at his bonds with all the strength of his mighty muscles, but in vain. The bonds were too stout to break, too well applied to slip or come untied.
He saw the Osages collecting fuel and placing it round a post, at a little distance from where he was bound. Escape seemed impossible.
A figure shrouded in a blanket glided past him, a fold of the garment touching his person. Instinctively he glanced up. The figure abruptly turned and repassed him, uttering two words:
"Be ready."