Kenowatha and the Girl Avenger were there!
As the Ottawa whirled his weapon to strike it was knocked from his grasp by a blow that broke his strong right arm.
With a shriek of mingled rage and pain, he dropped the senseless girl, and turned upon his antagonists. The Girl Avenger’s rifle covered his heart, while Kenowatha looked upon the dramatic tableau with folded arms!
“Wacomet, your time has come at last,” said the Girl Avenger, calmly, yet with an unconcealed tone of triumph. “One night four years ago, come the 24th of November, a band of red-skins surrounded a cabin near the mouth of the Maumee. The flames of their happy home was the first warning of the inmates’ danger, and when they sprung from their beds the butchery had begun. A father, crippled by disease, an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters, fell beneath the hatchets of the red demons, and but one of that sweet household—one destined by God to be the avenger of her race—escaped the work of death. Unseen by the butcherers she flew to the forest, and has since been a terror to your accursed race. Wacomet, you were there; I saw you strip Josie’s golden scalp from her baby head, and I swore that this hand should take yours.
“Of all who participated in that dark night’s work, but three are left: yourself, Turkey-foot, and Joe Girty, the white dog, for in the woods, this night we have met and slain the wolf’s whelp, Leather-lips. Not one has died a natural death—all have fallen by my hand—these fingers have torn their black scalps from their heads. Your time is here, and as you are the bravest chief in the red tribe, I grant you what I have granted to no red-man—time to sing his death-song. Therefore, Wacomet, soon to see Watchemenetoc, if you would, sing while there is yet time.”
The Girl Avenger spoke in the Ottawa tongue, but not a muscle moved on the doomed chief’s face. He knew that his last hour had come, knew, too, that his doom was just, and presently from his lips pealed the first notes of his death-song. He did not make it tedious; in few words, he recounted his warlike deeds, craved a corner in the Manitou’s lodge, besought victory for his countrymen again Wayne, regretted that he could not prove a red whirlwind against the pale-faces in the coming struggle, and then closed.
The avenger of her slaughtered race glanced at Kenowatha, as the chief finished, then her gaze flitted along the glistening barrel, and a report no louder than the bursting of a percussion-cap broke the stillness, and Wacomet was with his fathers!
“But two left!” she murmured, as she turned to Kenowatha, “and ere many hours they, too, will be gone. But, boy, we must rouse that girl and gain from her all the information we can about Effie and that villainous major. I scarcely doubt but that ere this he has struck the Canada trail.”
A moment later the twain bent over senseless Ewana, whom they at length restored to herself.
“Speak fast, Ewana,” said Nanette. “Where are the White Rose and the red-coat?”