A fire was dying at the foot of the declivity, and its flickering light weirdly clothed a lot of recumbent Indians. They lay in all positions, unconscious of the proximity of a deadly foe, and Swamp Oak griped his tomahawk vengefully as he thought of their late deeds of revenge.
He saw the creole step over a sleeping chief, and speak a few words to a guard who leaned against a tree, with eyes fixed upon three white men lying bound upon the ground not far away.
“Watchemenetoc is abroad to-night,” muttered the Peoria, as his eyes swept the camp for a particular object. “Where is the Lone Dove? The Yellow Bloodhound bore her from Odatha’s war-braves, but she is not with him now. Has she taken her wing and left the lair of the wolf? No, no; she would not desert her parent.”
A puzzled expression appeared upon the Indian’s face. Kate Blount was not in the creole’s camp. Swamp Oak had witnessed the Bloodhound’s separation, late the preceding day, from the war-party, and with the three male prisoners he had taken the trader’s daughter. He declared that he intended to convey them to the large body of red avengers who were devastating the country round about Cahokia, and there, over the putrid corpse of Segowatha, flay them alive. The creole tried to induce Odatha to accompany him; but the chief refused, and again resumed his march for the doomed Peoria village.
Swamp Oak, whose thrilling adventures, since Coleola’s bloodthirsty murder in his cave-home, shall presently fall from his own lips, did not at once, after the separation of Segowatha’s Avengers and the war-party, throw himself upon the trail of the former; but had followed the latter for reasons best known to himself.
If he had followed the Yellow Bloodhound, he might have witnessed our heroine’s mysterious disappearance from the band, while now regarding her fate he was left in the dark.
The white captives were wide awake.
From the summit of the hill Swamp Oak could see the glitter of their eyes, as they regarded the Bloodhound and their guard conversing in low tones.
The remainder of the avenging band—twenty in number—were sound asleep, and presently the creole glided from the guard and dropped near the dying fire.
The Peoria was conscious now of the working of some deep plot: he read it in the renegade’s appearance in the woods; his conference with the guards, and his return to his blanketed couch, from whence he saw him casting sly glances at the sentinel.