“Look, Dick!” Sandy shouted. “Toma is gaining! He’ll catch him yet before the canoe gets there. Look, look, Dick!”
A cold shiver suddenly struck its icy fingers through Dick’s chest. For a moment he doubted the evidence of his senses. For the first time, he noticed something that previously had escaped his attention. As Toma raised one arm in a desperate forward stroke, in the bright sun he caught the glint of steel.
He could see more easily now. Toma was swimming with a knife grasped firmly in his right hand. Like a flash, there came to Dick a horrible realization. The young Indian was planning his revenge! An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The memory of that insidious attack in the woods near the Mission Trail apparently burned in his mind with undimmed fury. An insult and injury never to be forgotten!
Sick at heart, the two silent watchers on the wharf, half turned and gazed solemnly into each other’s tense, set faces.
“Once an Indian, always an Indian,” blurted Sandy. “I’m afraid Toma is going to break his promise to Corporal Rand.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
LEAVE-TAKING.
Toma overtook Henri Mekewai in mid-stream and, with arm upraised brandishing the knife, checked the other’s flight until Corporal Rand and the canoe arrived. Not until the two swimmers were pulled aboard did Dick’s tension relax. He was glad that it was all over, relieved beyond measure that Toma had not committed his rash act. He stepped back from the edge of the wharf, breathing a sigh of relief. He knew now that not in vain had the young Indian given his promise to Corporal Rand.
“I was afraid for a minute,” he heard Sandy’s voice. “Terribly afraid, Dick. I thought that in the excitement of the moment, Toma might forget himself. I can see now that he didn’t pull out that knife to attack Henri Mekewai. Merely wanted to defend himself. And I don’t blame him either. I’d hate to be in a similar position without some means of protection.”
“So would I,” Dick agreed. “He showed good judgment, that is all, and quick thinking in a time of emergency. Just the same, for a moment it looked as if he really intended to use that knife.”
Sandy laughed relievedly. “Neither one of us would have thought a thing about it if we hadn’t remembered what Toma had said about carrying that scar. But we should have known him better than to believe that he really would break his promise to Corporal Rand.”