CHAPTER XXXIV.
When Jennie Woodbridge, who was flying along by the side of Red Hatchet, her Sioux captor, saw the arrangements made to ambush Kit Carey and his small band in pursuit of the hostiles, her heart sank within her with dread.
She felt more for the officer just then than she did for herself, and so asked the Sioux chief if his gratitude toward the white captain, for releasing him as he had done, would not cause him to spare the man who had treated him well.
But Red Hatchet had no mercy in his composition, and, in spite of "fairy tales" to the contrary of the Indian, from the "Last of the Mohicans" to the Apaches, had very little gratitude in his make-up.
So on sped the fair captive with her two guards, while Red Hatchet remained in the ravine to wipe out his pursuers in one well-directed volley.
That Kit Carey foiled him in this has been seen, and as the chief supposed that the officer and his men had gone into camp among the rocks to make a stand there, he determined upon capturing him at night.
He called his braves about him, twenty-eight in number, and told them that they were two to one against those among the rocks, and by slipping up, under cover of the darkness, and making a dash upon the little band, they would have it all their own way.
A few would fall, but the survivors would avenge them, and the harvest of scalps would more than compensate for the loss of half a dozen or so.