“The moon shoots her silver arrows upon the earth after two sleeps. Arrow-Head’s braves will be here soon.”
A low murmur of satisfaction pervaded the red listeners’ ranks.
As he finished, Captain Jack turned to the runners again; but ere he could address them, an athletic young Indian, not yet seventeen, leaped over the heads of the warriors who stood behind their chief, and confronted the twain, with a cry of triumph!
The savages, knowing that something remarkable was about to occur, crowded forward, and Jack commanded them to halt.
The boy had not yet spoken; he was waiting for breath, for his leap had, for the moment, deprived him of that necessary of life.
Alas! for him, he never regained it!
For the spokesman of the Klamath runners suddenly darted upon him and clutched his fair-skinned throat.
Then, with ease, he lifted the youth from the ground, and, in full view of the Modoc nation, drove a hunting-knife to his heart!
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE LION’S DEN.