“I can now, Artena. Baltimore Bob, you shall pay for your crowning act of villainy. Girl, ’Reesa’s got to leave the Lava-Beds.”
“Yes, but we must catch Jack first. The scout has sworn to help Artena.”
“I’m not going back on my word. We’ll kidnap the Modoc Tecumseh to-night, and then I’ll get ’Reesa back, and settle accounts with the veriest red devil this side o’ the Rockies!”
As brave and as cunning as old Kit South was he was doomed to discover the truth of the ancient adage—“There’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.”
CHAPTER II.
JACK AND HIS CAPTIVES.
While the foregoing scenes were transpiring on the edge of our camp, other events of importance to our romance occupied the Lava-Beds, and their immediate vicinity—events destined to introduce the reader to characters who have lately carved their names on history’s tablets with the tomahawk and scalping-knife.
About a fire that blazed in the center of a large cave, stood and reclined, perhaps twenty-five Indians. With several exceptions all were chiefs, and those exceptions were squaws. The men were clothed in the noble army blue, wearing cavalry hats, sabers and regulation sashes. The clothes of some of our fallen braves fitted the Indians to a nicety, and they laughed to themselves when they surveyed the garments, and thought of the massacre which their red hands had lately inflicted.
Conspicuous among the Modocs stood a tall fellow, about forty years of age. His hair was slightly tinged with gray, and there were crow’s-feet on his forehead, which seldom come to a savage of his years. He wore the fringy leggings of the western tribes; but his body was robed in a close-fitting regulation coat buttoned tightly over his chest, and upon the blue shoulders glittered two gold stars—a General’s insignia. His head was surmounted by a military hat, and his waist was encircled by a beautiful sword sash, from which hung a sword indicative of rank.
This man, in short, was the redoubtable Captain Jack, and the uniform he wore had once graced the manly form of a lamented warrior—General Edward Canby.