New York Harry held a bloody knife in his hand, and Sam Thatcher, the scout of five-and-twenty years, lay dead at his feet!
Quickly the scalp was jerked from the dead man’s head, and with an ejaculation of triumph, the murderer turned toward the remaining border-men.
He gained an elevated spot and looked down upon the couple, waiting, ignorant of Thatcher’s doom, for his return.
For a moment the Modoc contemplated them, then deliberately cocked a large navy revolver, and rested it on a shining rock.
No compunctions of conscience arrested the murderous design; the trigger was drawn, and one of the hunters dropped like a stricken bullock, without a cry or groan.
The last one, Luke Davis, looked up and caught a glimpse of the shining pistol-barrel. Instantly he raised his carbine, but the Indian sent another ball from the rock, and the hunter dropped on his knees, then prone upon the ground—dead.
The scalping operation, as in Sam Thatcher’s case, followed the consummation of treachery, and loaded with the arms of the murdered men, New York Harry disappeared among the gray rocks.
Kit South’s warning had availed them naught; the hand of the traitor was too swift for Thatcher’s eye. Had the Lava-Bed ranger stood in his shoes, the result might have been an entirely different one.
The Indian soon disappeared below the surface of the lava formations, and found himself in a high-ceiled corridor, whose sides he could touch with his hands. He seemed familiar with its dubious windings, for he pushed forward with alacrity, and surprised a score of Modocs in a large cave, almost two miles from the spot where he had entered the honeycomb.
“Mouseh missed Harry,” said the Modoc chief, greeting the Indian. “Where he been?”