In his admirable disguise, the spy counterfeited the Indian to perfectness, and under the circumstances it is not at all surprising that the dreaded enemy of the whole red race should try to send him to “the valley of the shadow.” But a few moments before the boat and its occupant appeared in the almost fatal vicinity, Kenowatha and the young She-wolf emerged from the latter’s home among the rocks, and stood upon the limestone crags many feet above the stream.
Kenowatha was the first to see the boat, and when Nanette’s eyes fell upon it—when they encountered the spy whom she believed to be one of her sworn enemies, a whirlwind of passion shook her frame, and she snatched the White Fox’s rifle from his hands—hers having been left in the cave.
Before she sped the leaden bullet on its errand, Nanette recognized Effie St. Pierre and Major Runnion, both of whom she had seen beneath the very cottonwood where the reader has seen a startling drama enacted.
Almost instantly she arrived at these conclusions: that Mark Morgan was Wacomet the Ottawa, who, she knew, entertained a burning passion for the trader’s daughter or protege, as she really was, for in his disguise the young spy certainly bore a striking resemblance, especially from the girl’s standpoint of observation, to the red-skinned lover; that, intent upon possessing the girl, who had gently yet firmly repelled his advances, Wacomet had journeyed to the trading-post, and had surprised Effie and her British lover under the cottonwood; that he had captured both, and was conveying them to some point up the stream, where he might hide them from their friends and his.
If such were the case, it had been policy for the young She-wolf to follow Wacomet, and by strategy wrest his prisoners from his red hands, and hideously adorn his brow with her crimson mark.
But Nanette Froisart could not repel the passion that took possession of her, and the rifle cracked.
When Effie St. Pierre shouted to her as she and Kenowatha descended the rocks, that her bleeding victim was no Indian—that she had dyed her hands in the blood of a friend, Nanette was horror-stricken, plunged into the stream, and arrested the crazy motions of the rudderless boat.
“What! not an Indian?” cried Nanette, looking up into Effie’s pale face.
“His skin is as fair as yours. He is Mark Morgan, one of Wayne’s spies.”
“Impossible!” parted the avenger’s lips.