For a moment Vinnie did not speak, then the words came clear and sharp from her white lips:
“No! I will never go!”
The chief’s face was fairly demoniac in an instant—the sickish leer was gone, and the savage teeth shone through the drawn lips in two white, gleaming rows. He advanced with a quick motion, and laid his hand roughly on her arm.
“Come!” said the harsh voice, “Sun-Hair must go!”
CHAPTER II.
CLANCY VERE AND HIS TROUBLE.
“Here I am!”
It was a young man who spoke, standing on the bank of a small stream that had its course through the forest at a point about two miles distant, as a bird flies, from Emmett Darke’s cabin.
He was tall and well-formed, with hazel eyes and dark-brown hair. His face was clear-cut and handsome, open and frank in its expression, while it indicated a goodly stock of firmness and courage.
This is Clancy Vere, the young hunter, an allusion to whom had brought the rich blood to Vinnie’s face that very afternoon.
He was clad in a complete suit of dressed deer-skin, elaborately ornamented about the shoulders with bright-colored beads and quills, his hunting-shirt being gathered about his waist with a wide belt from which protruded the stock of a heavy revolver and the silver-mounted hilt of a long bowie-knife, while a powder-horn and bullet-pouch were slung by a leathern cord under his left arm.