Never had the latter, even for an instant, taken his falcon eye off the Osage; but so swift was the motion with which the weapon was thrown, that although he sprung lightly aside to avoid it, the spiked head grazed and laid open his cheek, whence it glanced off, and striking an unlucky Crow who stood behind him, felled him, with a broken arm, to the ground. Even in the act of stooping to escape the mace, Wingenund fitted an arrow into the Black–foot bow which he held in his hand; and rising quick as thought, let it fly at his gigantic adversary, with so true an aim, that it pierced the windpipe, and the point came out at the back of his neck, close to the spine. While the Osage, half strangled and paralysed, tugged ineffectually at the fatal shaft, Wingenund leaped upon him with the bound of a tiger, and uttering aloud the war–cry of the Lenapé, buried his knife in the heart of his foe. With one convulsive groan the dying Osage fell heavily to the earth; and ere the bystanders had recovered from their astonishment, his blood–stained scalp hung at the belt of the victorious Delaware.
For a moment all was tumult and confusion; the few remaining Osages made a rush towards Wingenund to avenge the death of their chief, but they were instantly overpowered and secured with thongs of pliant bark, while White–bull sprang into the arena of combat, and in a voice of thunder shouted to his warriors to stand back and unstring their bows.
During the brief but decisive conflict the appearance of Wingenund was so much changed, that Ethelston declared to his friend afterwards that he should not have recognised him. The muscles of his active frame swelled with exertion, while the expanded nostril and flashing eye gave to his countenance an expression of fierce excitement, almost amounting to ferocity. Now that the struggle was over he resumed, without an effort, the habitual quiet gentleness of his demeanour, and turning to Besha, said, “Let the Upsaroka chiefs look below the belt of that dead wolf; perhaps they will find the signal whistle of the Kainna.”
The horse–dealer stooped; and searching, as he was directed, found a small leathern bag, on opening which there fell out, as Wingenund had said, the whistle of the Black–foot chief; a yell of indignation burst from the assembly, some of the nearest of whom vented their rage by bestowing sundry kicks upon the inanimate remains of the treacherous Osage.
Popularity is a plant that springs up as suddenly, and perishes as rapidly, among the tribes of the Western wilderness, as among the mobs of Paris or of London; and Wingenund, whose life would scarcely have been safe had he been found an hour earlier in the Crow camp, was now its hero and its idol. To say that the youth was not elated, would be to say that he was not human; for he had avenged the slaughter of his kindred, and had overcome the most powerful and renowned warrior in the Missouri plains, the fell destroyer of the race of Tamenund. But so well had he been trained in the school of self–command, that neither Ethelston, nor Paul Müller who had known him from his childhood, could trace in his demeanour anything different from its usual quiet modesty; and they waited, with no little impatience, to see what results would ensue from this triumph in respect of their own release.
The Crow chiefs and warriors did not forget, in the excitement of the scene just described, the threatened attack to which the treachery of Mahéga had exposed them; and they now crowded round Wingenund, while White–bull put many questions to him, through Besha, respecting the position and apparent numbers of the Black–feet, to all of which he answered with a precision that increased the high opinion that they already entertained of his quickness and intelligence. White–bull even condescended so far as to explain to him his own projects for withdrawing his band from the neighbourhood of the formidable Kainna to some more secure position. A slight smile curled the lip of the young Delaware, as he said to Besha, “The counsel of the Crow chief does not seem good to Wingenund: if White–bull will agree to his terms, he will place the Kainna chief, and half a score of his best warriors, as captives in this camp before to–morrow at midday.”
A general murmur of surprise followed these words; and White–bull, somewhat nettled, inquired what might be the terms proposed.
“They are,” said Wingenund, “first, that the two white prisoners shall be immediately restored to their friends; secondly, that the Osages shall be given up to the Lenapé; thirdly, that there shall be peace and friendship between the friends of Wingenund and the Upsaroka until the snow falls again upon the earth.”
The leaders having conversed apart for a few minutes, White–bull said, “If Wingenund fails, and the Kainna take many scalps from the Upsaroka, what will happen then?”
“They will take the scalp of Wingenund too,” replied the youth calmly.