Mark Morgan was horrified at the story that the Girl Avenger related, and again the trail of the red-coated assassin was trod by the terrors of the wood.
By-and-by the sounds of conflict fell upon their ears; they rushed forward, and, as the reader has seen, poured their deadly fire into the writhing ranks of the besiegers.
It was plainly evident to the quartette, after the major’s words, that they had a truly desperate man to deal with, and they fell beyond range of his deadly rifle for consultation. They believed Effie dead; but whether she had fallen by the Briton’s hand or perished by suffocation, they knew not. As it was, her death should be terribly avenged; though Wayne were left to chastise the savages without their potent aid, and they longed to follow Mad Anthony to victory.
Calmly, but with defiant mien, the disgraced soldier awaited the onset of his new enemies. He occupied a niche to the right of the opening into the cave, with his rifle grasped firmly in his hand, his pistols and knife at his feet, ready for instant use. He had been terribly mangled by the knife and hatchet during the late desperate conflict. The skin literally hung from his cheeks in strips; his arms were lacerated from elbow to wrist; a tomahawk had laid the right temple bare; and from other but minor wounds he suffered dreadfully.
He knew that his end was near; but he would perish like the wolf, and with his last breath bury his knife in the heart of a foe.
Since he had grasped Effie St. Pierre’s cold hand, no sound had reached his ears from that gloomy portion of the cave, though he had listened attentively for it since the lull in the storm of human passions. The thought that the girl was dead was as sweet to his mind as wildwood honey to the Indian’s lips. She had died his, as he had sworn she should; he had outwitted his rivals at last, and Mark Morgan might press a corpse to his heart if he liked.
At last Mark Morgan’s voice came to his ears.
“Rudolph Runnion, enough blood has been shed, and to prevent the useless effusion of more, I call upon you to surrender.”
“You might have saved your breath,” came the major’s answer, quick upon the heels of the spy’s sentence. “Parley is useless. If you want Ru’ Runnion, come and take him—dead as a stone.”
“Then we will take you—dead though it be!” was Mark Morgan’s rejoinder, and scarcely a moment later a large bunch of burning brush was thrust into the mouth of the cave, by a long pole in the hands of the second scout.