With a powerful effort she started back, but Golden George pounced upon her like an eagle, and the next moment his eyes were flashing like a triumphant demon's above her.
But let us to another scene.
Gopher Gid, bewildered by the sudden termination of the sun-dance, found himself comparatively unnoticed. All eyes were directed upon Midnight Jack, now known to the boy.
“Back to yer lodge, boy!” said a voice at his ear. “Don't try to git away of your own accord. We'll be arter ye to-night.”
Gopher did not look into the speaker's face; he recognised the voice of Rube Rattler, and, saying, “I will trust you,” he glided away, and crept into the lodge which he had lately left as Timon Moss's prisoner.
The sun went down, the darkness came, and at last a slight noise drew Gopher to the curtains.
At that moment a dark figure sprung into the lodge, and the little trapper went down before it. He felt the naked arm of an Indian about him, and the next moment the wigwam was filled with an unseen, jabbering crowd.
Resistance was in vain; the boy was overpowered, and almost before he could recover his scattered thoughts, he found himself dragged unceremoniously through the street. The figures of his captors, as he saw them in the starlight, were those of boys of his own age. There were sixty or more, and their savage delight knew no bounds.
But Gopher Gid saw more than that during that enforced journey. For each boy there seemed at least two dogs. There were canines of all species, sizes and conditions—the mangy cur, the gaunt bull-hound, the deer-slayer. They resembled a pack of wolves, leaping over one another, snapping, snarling, and actually biting, all the time making night hideous with their yelps. Gopher Gid was hurried toward a fate which Indian ingenuity had devised.
On, on went the Indian torture-boys with their helpless victim. Two of the stoutest—real little athletes—griped the young trapper's arms, and at a rapid pace he was jerked over logs and rattled across the open space, until at last the torture-band came to a halt.