"Do not stir, monsieur, at the peril of your life!" I called to him, and kept him covered as we flew. I knew the savages were running to try to head me off but I paid no attention to them until, rounding a great boulder, the chevalier (his face ghastly with rage and disappointed revenge, for so sudden had it all been he had had no time even to draw his pistol to prevent the rescue until too late) was out of my range, as we were out of his. Then, turning my pistol swiftly on the Osage in the lead,—none too soon, for his rifle was leveled at us,—I fired. The poor fellow fell forward with a wild yell that turned my heart sick; yet none the less, the others rushing on with their wild whoops to avenge him, I drew my second pistol and fired once more.
But I knew not with what result, for mademoiselle, with a convulsive shudder and a look of mortal woe, cried out:
"You have killed the chevalier!"
"No, mademoiselle," I answered grimly; "I have killed the poor whippoorwill you asked me for"; and then had all I could do without paying any more attention to the savages, for mademoiselle had fainted and lay like one dead on my arm, her white face upturned to mine, her long black lashes sweeping the marble cheeks, and the dark curls falling backward from the white brow and floating on the wind, as Fatima flashed along the woodland path like a swallow on the wing.
CHAPTER VII
I TWINE CHRISTMAS GREENS
"Woman's at best a contradiction still."
Yorke had reached the picnic-ground just long enough ahead of us to create pandemonium. He had reported both mademoiselle and me as killed and scalped by this time, and a band of a hundred savages, with the chevalier at their head, on their way to the picnic.