“You swear not to injure him?” said Reginald, who overheard what passed.
“I do,” said Mike; “I only want to show you that he can’t make a fool of Mike Smith.” Here he called up one of the men from the rear; and having whispered something in his ear, he said, in a loud and distinct tone of voice, “Jack, we have found out that this Indian cub belongs to the party, one of whom murdered poor Hervey. Life for life is the law of the backwoods: do you step a little on one side; I will count four, and when I come to the four, split me the young rascal’s head, either with a bullet or with your axe.”
“For Heaven’s sake, as you are men,” exclaimed Lucy, in an agony, “spare him!”
“Peace, Miss Brandon,” said Mike; “your brother will explain to you that it must be so.”
The guide would fain have whispered a word to the boy, but he was too closely watched by Smith, and he was obliged to trust to Wingenund’s nerves and intelligence.
“Are you ready, Jack?” said Mike, audibly.
“Yes!” and he counted slowly, pausing between each number, “one—two—three!” At the pronunciation of this last word, Wingenund, whose countenance had not betrayed, by the movement of a muscle, or by the expression of a single feature, the slightest interest in what was passing, amused himself by patting the great rough head which Wolf rubbed against his hand as if totally unconscious that the deadly weapon was raised, and that the next word from the hunter’s lips was to be his death warrant.
“D—n it, you are right, after all, Baptiste,” said Mike Smith; “the brat certainly does not understand us, or he’d have pricked his ears when I came to number three; so, do you ask him, in his own lingo, if he knows that mark on the rifle–butt, and can tell us to what red–skin tribe it belongs?”
The guide now addressed a few words to Wingenund in the Delaware tongue, while Reginald and Lucy interchanged a glance of wonder and admiration at the boy’s sagacity and courage.