The waves were still unpacified; they dashed into the arch with a fury perfectly irresistible, and the Destroyer laid the paddle aside as the white-crested billows took up the barque in their arms, as it were, and hurled it far into the cave.
“Well, Ahdeek, here we are once more,” said the youth, springing from the canoe, which the receding waves had left stranded on the hard floor of the natural hall. “Now, if nobody has disturbed our furniture and so forth, we are, indeed, all right. I, for one white boy, feel sleepy, and I hope daylight will find me in the arms of the drowsy god.”
“Ahdeek not sleepy at all,” was the reply, as the speaker stepped from the boat. “He want to find ring, so that when pale girl come to him an’ say, ‘Where ring?’ Ahdeek say, ‘Here, pale girl,’ an’ he give it up.”
“Boy, where do you think you lost the ring?” questioned the White Tiger.
The half-breed, forgetting that they stood in Cimmerian darkness, answered with a shake of his head, which, of course, his companion could not see.
“Maybe you lost it in the woods, when the Chippewas chased you?” he suggested.
“Ahdeek go back on trail to-morrow. He hunt for ring; if he no hunt, the bones of the old pale-face will rise from his grave and haunt half-breed.”
“Well, we’ll cease to talk about that ring,” said the Destroyer, who had lifted the canoe from the beach, and deposited it on pegs against the black wall. “I’m so glad that you’ve returned safely, and, after supper I’ll fix your shoulder up; then we’ll divide the powder.”
They moved off in the gloom.
“So,” said Ahdeek, musingly, “Chippewas kill all traders. Did they hunt for White Tiger?”