All at once a wild yell came from the cliff on the opposite side of the deep creek.
Every eye turned to the elevated spot, and upon the very edge of the declivity stood a red Amazon, whose aspect was most terrible.
“Who guided that she-devil hither?” cried Doc Bell. “I know her an’ she knows me, an’ to-day I’d sooner meet a thousand mad wolves than Coleola, the Snake Queen of the Delawares. Thar’ll be suthin’ dreadful to pay now. Nehonesto, where are you?”
CHAPTER VI.
COLEOLA AND NEHONESTO.
After slaying the Indian who had pursued her from the hunted Peoria’s cave home, Kate Blount continued her flight unmolested. She ran forward quite rapidly until her limbs grew weary, and her gait dwindled down to a fast walk. She had noted the ground over which she had passed a few brief hours before with Swamp Oak, and now knew that she was hurrying toward Cahokia creek.
Suddenly a chorus of wild yells burst upon her ears, and with a throbbing heart she ensconced herself in the top of a fallen tree, from whence she witnessed the conflict between the war-party, her father and friends.
She saw that the Indians did not seek the lives of the trio, and the countenances of the whites told her that they were going to fight to the death—that they, seeing their cause hopeless, would force the red-skins to slay them for self-preservation.
And well, too, she knew that her presence would change the tide of affairs, and to preserve the life of her father—preserve it, perhaps, for a fate worse than death by the tomahawk, she slew Big Fox-Fire, and became the avengers’ prisoner.
When the yell which announced Coleola’s appearance on the cliffs opposite the war-party, and Kate beheld the mad Snake Queen, a pallor flitted over her cheeks, and she glanced at her father, who was bound to a sapling scarce five feet away.