“Who shall lead the way?”
The question is quickly answered.
“Wacomet.”
“It is well,” was the whispered answer. “Let Wacomet lead the way into the She-wolf’s den, and Leather-lips and the Speckled Snake will crawl at his heels.”
“Wacomet is sure that we have found the She-wolf’s lair, and our brothers will do nothing but frighten lizards, owls and bats from their holes. The red-man’s Terror, dreaming not of a foe, sleeps beside the White Fox, and they will wake in the Ottawa’s arms.”
Again, but with Wacomet in the van, the trio move forward. The Death League was at work.
Below the trio whom we have seen enter the Girl Avenger’s home, the remainder of the band, headed by Joe Girty and Turkey-foot, were exploring other cavernous openings, leading inward from the cliff, for, to a certainty, Nanette’s cave was not known to her enemies. Time and again she had been pursued by the Indians, but she had in the end eluded them by darting down the precipice, and disappearing in one of the openings I have described.
The place of Stomah had been filled by the bloodthirsty Speckled Snake, one of the braves who accompanied Wacomet, and a savage who had lost three brothers by the delicate hand of the girl demon. He entered the League with a zest born of the grossest revenge, and took the terrible oath with a vindictiveness that sent a shudder to his co-swearers’ hearts.
The low stone roof of the passage in which the trio found themselves compelled them to crawl forward, slowly groping their way like the blind. Every now and then Wacomet would halt, and the three would listen intently for several minutes, and, hearing nothing, glide forward again.
Not a word was uttered by the trio, for the worn surface of the ground over which they crawled told them that the cave at the termination of the labyrinthine corridor was or had been inhabited.