He reached his objective point at last, and, parting the verdant boughs, peered through upon the highly ornamented butt of a light rifle!
The next moment the young Indian’s eyes fell upon the owner of the weapon.
She lay near the polished barrel, only deeper among the fir, and the hue of a corpse rested upon her fair face and slender hands.
The peeping lids gave the savage a glimpse of blue eyes, and the masses of golden hair, darkened by the water they held imprisoned, must have captivated him.
Motionless, breathless she lay on the stony ground, and the hand which the Indian touched was as cold as ice.
He shook his head sorrowfully as he tenderly lifted the body from the ground.
“Silver Rifle dead! She no be Dohma’s now! Why she come to Gitche Gumee? To die by the big waters an’ be buried by the Chippewa whose heart she stole three moons ago? Dohma go bury Silver Rifle in big hole, far from bad waters.”
He did not neglect the beautiful rifle, as he moved down the lake shore with his burden, for he bore it in the same hand that griped his own.
A few minutes’ walk brought him to one of the Superior’s numerous caverns, which he entered by wading to his waist in the cold water. Soon he found himself in gross darkness, through which he groped his way for several hundred feet.
At length he paused, and laid his burden on the ground.