It was no child’s play for the quartette, though Effie could lend but little assistance, to bear the helpless major up the loose and ragged rocks to Nanette’s cave home. But the Herculean task was bravely undertaken and accomplished, and the wounded man found himself almost buried in a pile of soft skins, that seemed to him a bed of down.
Then his wounds were more carefully examined, and found to be of a less serious nature than was at first supposed; but still he was far from safety. The irritation caused by the journey up the rocks might speedily prove fatal, and terminate a life not without guilt.
The day passed quickly to the inmates of the cave, and when night came again, Mark Morgan announced his intention of carrying out the wishes of his commander before dawn—viz: to enter the Indian village and ascertain the numbers, etc., of the red-men and their white allies who were to meet Wayne on the banks of the Maumee. He knew almost to a certainty that the conflict would take place near Nanette’s cave, and he resolved to leave Effie under the protection of the young avenger, until he returned from the American forces. She would be safer there than while being conducted through forests, swarming with red and white foes.
The young spy now doffed the dress peculiar to Wacomet, which he had worn, and adopted that of an Ottawa sub-chief, in which he would be more likely to carry out his plans satisfactorily, both to himself and Mad Anthony.
Nanette resolved to accompany the scout to the suburbs of the “town,” and there await his return, leaving Effie and the Briton under the watchful eye of Kenowatha.
While the boy—for boy Kenowatha may well be called—inwardly chafed at being left to play an inactive part in the red drama that was being enacted, he submitted with good grace when Nanette told him that soon he should tread with her the path of vengeance, from dawn till dawn.
Disguised as an Indian girl, yet bearing her rifle, the young She-wolf—as the Girl Avenger had been styled by the savages—left the cave with the scout, and, after a rapid walk of two hours, parted with him on the suburbs of the Ottawa village, he promising to return against midnight.
The girl had chosen a position a short distance from the river, and within thirty feet of Turkey-foot’s lodge, the entrance of which she faced.
The curtains of skins that formed the door were raised, thus exposing the well-lighted interior of the spacious wigwam to the girl. Presently six dark figures, gliding as noiseless as serpents over the meadow, passed Nanette and entered the lodge.
After awhile a solitary figure, which she recognized as Joe Girty, approached and walked among the warriors. Then followed the drawing of the totems, and when the face of Stomah, the red artist, was revealed to the avenger, her rifle flew to her shoulder, and, before the gust of revenge left the girl, Stomah was ebbing out his life-blood, as the reader has seen, over the totems. Stomah had paid the penalty he had incurred upon a certain stormy November night, years prior to the inauguration of our romance.