CHAPTER XI.
A MEETING AT THE DEVIL’S TARN.
The Devil’s Tarn and the Crystal Falls were one and the same. The latter name had been given the torrent of Rodger Rainbolt, who, as the reader already knows, dwelt in the secret cavern whose entrance was concealed by the falls. To those dwelling in the mountains—the hunters, robbers, and Indians, the place was known as the Devil’s Tarn, and by this name we will call it hereafter.
It was about two hours of midnight on the evening of the same day that Rodger Rainbolt had unexpectedly rode into the Indian encampment on Lodge Pole, that the figure of a man wrapped in a kind of military cloak, and wearing a broad-brimmed hat and pair of high-topped boots, and carrying a bull’s-eye lantern, might have been seen pacing to and fro beneath the boughs of a great pine tree that stood but a few feet from the head of the Devil’s Tarn.
Presently, his keen ear caught the soft tread of moccassined feet, and the next moment a dark hairy figure emerged from the black wood and advanced toward him. The man lifted his lantern and flashed it upon the figure of the new-comer.
It was Black Bear, the Cheyenne chief. And the man who held the lantern was Duval Dungarvon, the robber-captain.
“Ay, Duval Dungarvon, and so you’re on time,” said the chief, seizing the robber by the hand.
“Yes, my handsome Black Bear, I am always up to time; but where’s the girl?” replied Dungarvon.
“Gone to the devil,” bluntly replied Black Bear.
“Come now, don’t trifle with me, Blufe Brandon!” exclaimed the robber-captain, fiercely. “I ask you where the girl is?”