The road-agent now turned his attention to escape from the cavern, and all at once he heard a voice.
“This must be the hole, and Screamin' Eagle will drop into it.”
Midnight Jack uttered a cry of delight, and then the friends met!
“Look to the north, Dora. Yonder is Sioux land. Would you go there?”
“Yes, to find the brother I have sought. Jack, if they had killed me—”
“I would not be here within sight of Fort Sully. What did I write on the wagon which I loaded with dead Indians?—that I would exterminate the Sioux nation! But you live, Dora. I thank Heaven I had not your death to avenge! Now farewell forever to the road!”
When Midnight Jack rode boldly into Fort Sully, he was at once put under arrest by the commandant. But a sweet face, and a sweeter voice, pleaded for his release, and Jack dared the colonel to point to one loyal citizen whom he had plundered. Then came the story of the father's curse—the exile—the stirring scenes we have witnessed in the course of this narrative, and—the release.
Time has rolled on. The soldier father is dead—Midnight Jack a prosperous man—and the little trapper's love been rewarded by Dora's hand.
Rube Rattler is back on the frontier, relating all about the sun-dance.