“The ring will greet me with its glitter,” she muttered, searching around the trunks of the trees, and gradually describing larger circles, which drew her nearer the edge of the cliffs.
A pale moonlight flooded the ground, and more than once Silver Rifle was momentarily deceived by the glitter of lake pebbles, which by divers means had found their way into the forest, so far above their rocky bed.
“These are not the oaks!” she said at last, in despair, as she suddenly paused in her search. “Dohma meant other trees than these. And— Ha! what is yon dark object, and did it not move?”
Quickly her rifle dropped from her left arm, and the flint was gently drawn back, while her eye remained riveted upon the object which had startled her.
As she looked, the shape grew into the figure of a beast, and she at length concluded that it was dead. So she moved forward, and at length stood over the body of the panther which had wounded Ahdeek’s shoulder with his sharp teeth. She saw evidences of a struggle on the earth about the dead beast, and discovered that white and red had met there at no remote hour.
The discovery somewhat startled the girl, and as she rose to her feet, the cry of the night-hawk sounded terribly distinct in her ears. It seemed to emanate from a spot not twenty feet to her right. Slowly but deliberately she turned toward the spot, and the next instant several dark forms leaped from behind trees, and advanced upon her!
“Keep off, red-men!” she cried. “I have as yet spilled but little Chippewa blood, for I trail not your people. Stand off, I say, else there be—”
Her sentence was cut short by a shriek, for she found herself in the grasp of a stalwart savage who had approached her from the rear, while the trio engaged her attention in front.
“White girl no shoot Chippewa now,” laughed her captor, and presently Silver Rifle found herself standing in the midst of a war-party, hideously disfigured by paint. “White girl same as Dohma hunt,” quickly continued the chief. “Dohma tell Oagla he love girl whom he call Silver Rifle. White girl see Dohma?”
The girl shook her head, and the savages laughed.