As he reached the struggling trio, he heard the dull thud of a knife against a bone, and one of the three staggered back with a half-smothered groan.
Then the slayer hurled his other antagonist from him and darted away.
But the renegade’s hand shot forward like a butcher’s sledge, and the victim staggered and fell to the earth.
“’Tis lucky I war hyar,” said Girty, in his rough voice, as he threw himself upon the stricken one. “I guess I war not mistaken; but I’ll see.”
With spittle he rubbed some paint from his prisoner’s face, and the stars showed him a white skin.
“I war right!” he ejaculated, rising and uttering a peculiar whoop. “Wayne’ll hear what you pumped out o’ old Vulture-eyes, Mark Morgan. Never!”
[3] A name bestowed by the savages upon Wayne.
CHAPTER VIII.
OFF FOR THE RESCUE.
The shot fired at Mark Morgan by the Girl Avenger did not prove fatal, as the reader has just seen by witnessing the scout’s capture by Joe Girty in the Ottawa village.