“White man fight wild-dogs here,” he murmured to his satisfaction. “White man lose ear, Injuns take white man, but what do with ’im?”
Unable to answer the question to his satisfaction, the chief moved toward the lake, and presently encountered abundant evidences of the torture-post. A heap of blackened and burned boughs lay at the foot of a young tree, and an investigation revealed a lot of small charred bones.
“Indians burn pale-man here,” said the chief. “They save ’im from dogs and burn ’im here, for they ’fraid he git away if they take ’im to village.”
As he spoke, he knelt down and began to examine the bones, which proved to be those of animals, intent upon solving a certain inquiry to his satisfaction. He had laid his rifle beside the tree, nor did he dream of danger.
Suddenly he was roused by the snapping of a twig, and whirling instantly, he reached for his rifle, but, to his horror, found it missing.
Then, with a cry of defiance, he leaped to his feet, as two dark figures rounded neighboring trees and threw themselves upon him.
The assaulters were young, lithe, active Indians; but their features were concealed by fox-skin masks.
Hondurah’s knife and hatchet were wrested from him, and when he saw that he was completely overpowered, he ceased to struggle, and submitted as quietly as possible.
To his question, “Who binds Hondurah?” a low, sarcastic reply was given, and the chief saw he was in the hands of those who would not scruple to take his life.
They stripped his owl-feathers from his head, tore every insignia of chieftainship from his person, hastily bedaubed him, after the manner of a Green River Indian, with whom the Chippewas were at war, and secured his eyes with a blindfold.