“Villain!” cried Silver Rifle, “you’ve thrown it away! Oh if I could live to pay you for that act!”
CHAPTER VIII.
AN UNEXPECTED DEATH-SHOT.
Silver Rifle turned suddenly upon the Destroyer.
“You have trailed with him who has carried the ring long,” she said, in a tone of intense anxiety. “Can you not tell me who I am?”
“Alas,” was the reply. “I can not, girl. He kept his own secrets, and they have died with him.”
A deep sigh escaped Silver Rifle’s lips, and a moment later the voice of Hondurah attracted the attention of all.
“Oagla, where is the pale girl’s ring?” he demanded of the chief. “Let her read life before she dies.”
“Ring bad,” answered Oagla, quailing with shame before the flashing eyes of his stern sachem. “It kill Hawkeye. Oagla fear it kill him, so he throw it among trees. He hate bad ring; Silver Rifle kill him for it, mebbe.”
“Oagla is a coward!” thundered Hondurah, and the flash of his eyes seemed to blast the look of the superstitious and fearful chief. “The Chippewa who is afraid of a shining thing should break his gun and become a squaw. Single out your best trailers now, Oagla, and before to-morrow’s sleep place the ring in Hondurah’s hand, or be a chief no longer among the warlike Chippewas. Hondurah has spoken!”
And, as he resumed his former position, the chief waived aside the savages who had laid hands on the dauntless girl.