A fearful determination overspread Kate Blount’s face, and, through clenched teeth, she hissed:
“Never!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE AVENGERS BAFFLED.
Night in the forest of the Illinois.
Not a star is missing in the azure canopy, and the notes of the nightingale tinkle musically in the freshening breeze.
The cry of the panther is not heard; the owl seems to be feasting himself upon some delicious morsel won by his prying eyes and sharp claws, for his hoot reëchoes not through the star-lit wood, nor does the frightful howl of the wolf, the terror of new countries, disturb the slumbers of nature.
But through the forests stalk the enemies of mankind, proving that “man is a human wolf.” The wily red-skin is abroad, either as Pontiac’s avenger, reddening his hatchet with the blood of his fellow-creature, or as the hunted Peoria, Kaskaskia or Cahokia, flying from the demons unchained by a barrel of English rum.
Not far from the scenes of our romance the war of extirpation had raged with terrible fury. Those English families that failed to shelter themselves in Cahokia or Fort Chartres had either been butchered by the crimson devils or were fugitives with no spot whereon to lay their heads safe from the tomahawk of the avengers.
Upon the night described above an Indian was pushing his way through the forest, and following the course of the famous Cahokia Creek, not far from its boundaries. His step proclaimed him young, and well versed in the tortuous ways of the wood, for in the dim light he avoided the dry twig or the decaying log that cracks beneath the foot, and leaped the treacherous root with the precision of one traveling in the broad light of day.