As he finished, he threw the captive to his mistress, and jerked a jug from one corner of the cabin.
It was uncorked, and weighing it on his broad palm, he remarked:
“Ye’ve taken a pretty ginteel swag, my red panther, and for fear you’ll go to sleep while I’m gone, I’ll dispose of the remainder.”
With great gusto he elevated the vessel, and for several seconds it remained poised above his lips. He drank deeply—he drank the jug empty!
Then he drew a bunch of sinews from his pocket, drew them around Nanette’s wrists, until the thongs cut into the flesh, and retied her ankles. The last operation accomplished to his inhuman satisfaction, he tossed his captive to a couch in one corner of the apartment. She fell upon her face on the one thickness of bear-skin, and lay motionless.
“Now watch her well,” said the renegade, thrusting into the squaw’s hands a silver-mounted cavalry pistol, a relic of St. Clair’s ill-fated campaign. “If she’s gone when we come fur her, why, ’ooman, we’ll cut ye to pieces. I’m a white devil, as you know, and by my sinful soul, if she gits away from you, I’ll tear your lying tongue out.”
With this he opened the door, and saw Loosa seat herself beside Nanette, with ready pistol, before he slammed the portal, and bounded toward the council.
There was a lull in the nocturnal proceedings when the renegade reached the outer circles of warriors.
Turkey-foot, the Shawnee, had just delivered a bitter speech, burdened with able warlike counsel, and the other chiefs were timid in following such a distinguished speaker immediately. It was in deference to Turkey-foot that the silence—an opportune moment for Joe Girty—reigned.
“Now’s my time,” he muttered, pushing his way through the circle. “I’ll have every Injun yellin’ within three minutes.”