“Fo’ de good Lor’ dis am dretful!” he groaned. “I’se done fo’ dis time, an’ dar am nobody to rescue Marse Frank!”
It was truly a dubious outlook. The savages were of Black Buffalo’s gang of Sioux, and they seemed much elated at getting the prisoner once more into their clutches.
They chattered and gesticulated like a flock of magpies, and some of them approached Pomp with their tomahawks as though they would fain make an end of him then and there.
But the others held them back and an excited wrangle followed.
All this while Pomp was writhing in his bonds. In vain he tried to break them.
For some while the savages wrangled. Then a compromise was made and Pomp was picked up bodily, and carried through the pass and into a small glade among some trees.
Here he was tied to a tree and a great heap of fagots were piled at his feet.
With a chill of horror, the darky saw that the savages meant to take his life in a horrible manner.
He was to suffer death in the flames. Pomp felt sick and faint. But even in that moment he thought not of himself, brave fellow, but of Frank Reade, Jr., and the others.