“That’s just what he is. When a white man turns Injun, Satan registers a new devil on his books.”
“A white man, Kit? You don’t mean that—”
“Yes, I do. Baltimore Bob is a white chap called Rafe Todd,” and then the scout detailed a history of the renegade’s crime, and subsequent desertion. “You see, I knowed nothing of this when he came about our parts,” he continued, “and he began cutting around ’Reesa. But, she wouldn’t have any thing to do with him, for she was rather soft on a fellow named Harris,” and there was a merry twinkle in the father’s eye while he spoke the last sentence. “Finally, he insulted ’Reesa and I wanted to cowhide him. By Jehu! I would have skinned ’im alive, I guess; ’Van took it up, and one night they fought a duel with rifles along Lost River. ’Van hit the fellow somewhere, and he tumbled over the bank into the water. We saw him floating down-stream, dead, as we thought. But he isn’t dead. ’Van saw Jack unmask him the other day, and after that the white devil shot ’Van in the head.”
“Is Harris dead?”
“No; I brought him off from the last fight, and he’s in Cap. Jackson’s tent now, nigh about as well as anybody. When Bob, or Rafe Todd, found that he wasn’t dead, he put him into the clutches of their Curly-headed Doctor, with eye-orders to get him out o’ the way. The medicine fool tried it, but ’Van took care of an advantage, and knocked the doctor down. Then he broke an’ run, got into the river, was strangled, and Cohoon got him out when he was nigh about gone. I guess we’ll never see Cohoon ag’in. They’ll make short shrift of the brave red fellow. Where’s Artena and Donald?”
Gillem shook his head.
“Their absence perplexes me. I never liked the idea of sending that girl among the Modocs. She walks into the jaws of death every time she enters the lava-caves. If the Modoc chiefs ever get a good chance at her—”
“Why, she’s gone. But it puzzles me about Mack,” said Kit. “If he got out of the river, he would have been hyar afore this, I think.”
“Something startling may detain him. Recollect, he has friends to save.”
“And I—I have a wife to avenge!” cried the scout, springing to his feet, all the anger of his nature aroused. “General, I had a dream, during the short sleep I snatched in Jackson’s tent, last night. It’s too long to tell, but it amounted to this; I killed the man who sent the red devils against my cabin—Rafe Todd. I don’t b’lieve in dreams very much; but I dreamt this one over three times in an hour, and I know thar’s something in it. If he don’t deserve—”