The sentence was broken by the crack of a rifle overhead, the paddle fell from Mark Morgan’s hands, and he sunk down in the bottom of the boat.
With a light cry Effie St. Pierre snatched up the rifle that lay at her feet, and glanced upward.
Two figures on a projecting rock fifty feet above, commanded her attention.
“Throw down the rifle, girl,” said the silvery voice that floated down to her, while the boat spun around among the rocks.
The two figures began to descend.
“Hasten!” cried Effie, laying the rifle aside, and glancing at the bloody face of her lover. “He’s not an Indian,” and she pointed to him as she looked up again. “The young She-wolf has stained her hands with the blood of a friend!”
At this a cry escaped the lips of the foremost of the descending twain, and faster down the rocks came the beautiful Terror of the Maumee, and Kenowatha.
CHAPTER VII.
THE RED-SKIN’S OATH.
Maddened beyond description, because his call was unanswered by his protege, Joe Girty turned to the Indians, and allowed a volley of oaths to escape his lips. Finding his red allies mute, or conversing with each other in unintelligible whispers, he stepped from Turkey-foot’s side to the little group of renegades consisting of his brother Simon, Capt. McKee, Elliott, and several others.