“Dear says Mouseh is this arm to him; but he will give it for the scalp of Donald McKay.”
“And here is an arm for the hair of the Lost River hunter,” and a tawny arm, upon which the muscles stood out like ropes, was thrown across Jack’s.
The last speaker was Boston Charley.
The next moment a wild shriek rung throughout the cavern, and a young girl, clad in civilized habiliments, darted from a gloomy corner of the cave, and threw herself among the scarlet rebels.
“He is my father!” she cried, fastening her eyes upon the last red speaker. “You shall not take his life. Already, fiends, you have slain my mother, and if you dare to take the scalp of the only relative I now possess, I’ll drive the knife and bullet to more than one red heart.”
The Indians stood speechless while she spoke, and when she had finished, Boston Charley darted upon her with the hoarse growl of the disturbed jungle tiger.
A moment later and the young girl might have been brained, had not Jack caught the uplifted arm, and clutched a hatchet with a determination not to be disobeyed.
“She is Baltimore Bob’s,” he said, looking squarely into Charley’s maddened eye. “He has a claim upon the girl which we must not meddle with. We strike the blue-coats who carry guns and swords—not women who wear long hair.”
Cowed by his chieftain’s eye and the menacing hatchet, Charley dropped the arm he had taken, and the beautiful captive staggered from the group.
“Oh, heavens! have I fallen to the lot of Baltimore Bob?” she cried, sinking back upon the heap of sage-bush, which she had lately deserted. “I have thought, for years, that he was dead; but now to fall into his power again. Oh, heaven protect me.”