“Another stake!” he cried.
Tom Kyle stepped between him and his new victim.
“The pale girl’s mind is wandering,” he said. “The minions of White Lasso, the Pawnee, slew her father, when they drove her from the lodges. Her head is cracked; she does not know what she is saying. It was the trapper who slew Long Arrow.”
The executioners, who had caught the renegade’s words, paused and looked at Tarantulah.
The chief heard Tom Kyle patiently, and his anger fled, when he turned to them, slowly, deliberately.
“Another stake!”
The Pawnee king turned away with an oath.
“By George! I’m nobody here, after all,” followed the evil word. “I’m no better than a dog in Tarantulah’s eyes, when the devil creeps into his heart. To-morrow night, Miss Aiken and I will take another ride into the city of Mexico. They will burn Miss Denison; I can’t help her longer.”
When the words “another stake,” uttered for the second time, fell from Tarantulah’s lips, Mabel Denison crept forward and threw her arms about her fair, tearful companion in misfortune.
“Lina, we part forever here,” she murmured, as Lina’s lips touched her cheek, and glued themselves there. “The stake is my portion; what yours is, Heaven will disclose!”