“Dead, by hokey!” he ejaculated, with eminent satisfaction. “Here’s the chap what I dropped afore the hatchet spoiled my face; but who’s gone an’ scalped ’em?”
In the pale moonlight the trader had discovered that the corpse was scalpless, and this excited his wonder.
Surely White Tiger and Silver Rifle did not defeat the savages after his fall, else he would not have been left there, even though he had been killed.
“I can’t fathom it,” he said, after a lengthy silence, “and I won’t try any more. Now, the next thing is to get out of this. Jehu, but I’m as weak as a weasel. I must have lost a barrel of blood. My face won’t bleed any more just now, for the blood is hard and shuts the gash.”
Then, with the help of a tree, the trader drew himself to his feet, and tried to walk away; but found himself too weak for the undertaking.
“I’ve got to crawl,” he reluctantly admitted, lowering himself to the ground again. “By heaven, if I ever git over this, somebody’ll hev to suffer.”
He robbed one of the dead Indians of his knife, and then crawled away.
It was a fearful strait to be in. At any moment his actions might betray him to vindictive enemies, and he could expect no mercy at their hands. He brooded over vengeance as he moved along through the forest, as he thought, toward the lake.
“This is slow work,” he said, a thousand times. “I hope I’ll be strong enough to walk like a man after a while. The lake can’t be far off now, for it is near daylight, and—heavens!”
Well might the trader utter the ejaculation and shrink back, for his hand had fallen upon a bare and icy arm!