The band exerted all its strength, and the result was almost unexpected—the stone was raised, and before it could settle down again, a second putting forth of strong hands had rolled it from the aperture.
In the glare of the torch every sweaty face glowed with triumph and revenge.
“Now!” said Turkey-foot, “she is ours, the Manitou put new strength into our limbs, and the power of Watchemenetoc could not prevail against it. We must now fight her. Wacomet and Leather-lips will creep back and crouch in the gloom beyond her eyes and the fires, in this dark hole. Turkey-foot and the white Ottawa will climb up into the hole over our heads, and attack her in the rear. Now go. She knows not that we have moved the stone; and when the hoot of the owl pierces your ears, spring from the blackness upon her.”
Before Wacomet and Leather-lips turned to their mission, they saw the chief and the renegade draw themselves up into the opening, after extinguishing the torch.
In the darkness near the orifice of the lower corridor crouched Wacomet and the sorcerer, waiting for the attacking signal. They knew that the Girl Avenger still occupied her post, for they could distinguish the barrel of her rifle between them and the torches. Once or twice Wacomet was on the point of rushing forth, but Leather-lips restrained him and bade him wait for the signal.
At last it came, seemingly from the wooded banks of the stream beyond the cave, which circumstance the twain did not pause to note, but darted forward.
Leather-lips was in the advance and grasped the glittering rifle-barrel as he bounded from the corridor. It fell on easy prey; there was no hand to contend with him for the possession of it, and no form, save those of his slaughtered countrymen, greeted him in the great cave.
Where was the Girl Avenger, and where Girty and the Ottawa chief? Surely the latter had given the signal, for it had pierced their ears and impelled them forward. In the center of the cave, splendid targets for the unerring aim of the Girl Avenger, and statues of indecision, stood the two chiefs gazing into each other’s faces. The torches—or rather the brands which had now assumed the office of torches—bathed the entire cave in a mellow light and revealed every object to the statuary pair.
While thus they stood, the signal—the hoot of the night-owl—was thrice repeated, now in an imperative and half-angry tone, and a cry of astonishment mingled with the darkly mysterious, parted the chief’s lips. Why did not the others show themselves, and cease repeating the signals which had been obeyed? Were they to fight the She-wolf alone, or had Turkey-foot and his white friend wandered off into other dark passages in which the twain believed the earth overhead to abound?
Suddenly the peculiar scream of the white heron came to their ears, and a few minutes later a footstep faintly sounded in the main corridor. Leather-lips clutched his companion’s arm, and drew him back into the niche, where they crouched with eyes fixed upon the main passage.