“Ahdeek Silver Rifle’s brother,” said the young Avenger, drawing the girl to his heart. “His mother sleeps in the forest; Silver Rifle’s among the white man’s lodges.”
For a moment silence reigned in the cave.
“The mystery of my life is solved,” she said, turning to Dorsey Webb, who had not yet recovered from this unexpected denouement. “My father was the trader whose death my brother here has avenged. He came to these shores when lies estranged him and mother, long ago. I was born after his departure; so I never saw his face. But he tells me all—who I am, what I am. In his seclusion he wedded a chief’s daughter, who gave him a son—Ahdeek—then died. I am of noble blood; father tells me so. Oh Heaven, I thank thee that I have not hunted in vain for the ring. It has told the story that sealed mother’s lips. Now, Ahdeek, the papers!”
She unrolled the wet papers, and all present bent over them to decipher, if possible, the strange diagrams traced upon them.
“They tell of wealth,” said the White Tiger. “Ahdeek, where is this cliff marked here? I never saw it.”
The half-breed looked carefully at the diagram, and after deep thought, started to his feet.
“Cliff right ’bove us!” he cried, as he snatched a torch from the fire.
All was plain to the half-breed now; the cliff beneath which the old trader’s wealth was deposited stood above them; the hiding-place was the Cave of the Winds, not named, merely marked, on the rude map.
The interior of the cave was rudely but thoroughly traced on the parchment, and at last Ahdeek suddenly dropped the torch, and began to disturb the stony earth with his tomahawk.
He struck the right spot, and presently the trader’s earnings during seventeen years of highly successful toiling rewarded their labors.