“Thank God it is over with!” said the man.
“And we are rich—the Golden Horn is ours!” replied the woman.
Scarcely had the last word fallen from her lips, when two rifles on the opposite side of the opening rung out—a cry of mortal agony pealed from the lips of the man and woman—they staggered, reeled, and sunk heavily to the earth.
Two Sioux Indians rushed from cover of the woods, and stooping, were in the act of scalping the fallen man and woman, when Old Tumult and Town. rushed from their covert and prevented the bloody act.
CHAPTER XIV.
A VILLAIN DEFEATED.
Defeated in his repeated attempts to capture or kill Old Tumult and Town. upon Two Islands, Dick Sherwood returned to the Indian village, his feelings wrought up to the highest pitch of rage. And fuel was added to the consuming fire of his wrath, when the news of the slaughter of his warriors at the Devil’s Staircase reached his ears.
The fates seemed against him. Every one of his daring and deep-laid plots of vengeance had failed, excepting the surprise at Wildwood lake.
The handsome devil cared nothing for the lives of the savages, only as far as his selfish wickedness was concerned. And to have accomplished the purpose of his will, he would have sacrificed every warrior in the tribe. However, when one plot failed, his wicked, fertile brain soon conceived another.
On the morning of the day that Clara Bryant had promised to marry him for her liberty, he came rushing into her lodge inquiring for Madge Taft. But, Madge was not there, and in a tone of ungovernable rage he declared she had escaped; and should he recapture her, he would inflict all sorts of punishment upon her.
Although Clara was glad that Madge had escaped, it made her feel more lonely and desolate, when she thought that she was entirely alone, so far as friends were concerned, in the midst of enemies.