He saw, too, that the girl had just entered the lodge, and that the beauty of Lina had riveted her, as it were, to the ground.
He gazed upon her, too horror-stricken to dissipate the striking tableau!
Suddenly the Indian girl stooped over her rival; the passionate fire vanished from her dark eyes, like mists from a morning sun, and the light of love and pity supplied its place.
Nearer and nearer the red face approached Lina Aiken, and at last the lips of the strange twain met.
“Poor Gold Girl!” the renegade heard Winnesaw murmur, as she slowly raised her head. “Winnesaw came here to kill; but the Gold Girl is too pretty for her knife.”
For an instant she knelt over Lina, admiring her unconscious form; then the knife suddenly flew aloft again.
Tom Kyle, the watcher, started, and held his breath.
He saw the firm set lips of the Pawnee girl, by the light of the fire in the center of the lodge; and he saw the glittering blade descend like a bolt of lightning!
It grazed the Gold Girl’s head and severed a shining tress, which rolled from the fox-skin pillow.
Winnesaw’s hand darted upon the severed lock, and the next moment it was hidden away in her bosom.