All at once a groan penetrated the gloom the trio were piercing, and they became as marble statues.
Instantly Nogawa, the traitor, shrunk back, exclaiming:
“’Tis the Yellow Bloodhound!”
“Impossible!” said the scout. “I cut him to the death.”
A second groan, more prolonged than the first, now reached their ears, and again they started forward. As they did so, the sound of footsteps in the gloom which they had traversed fell upon the Young Hunter’s acute senses, and he was about to warn Nehonesto, when he thought of his first warning.
Presently a light greeted them, and they drew back from its glare to crouch in the shadow of the gigantic stalactites, hanging from the roof of the corridor.
Looking ahead with eager eyes, the trio beheld three figures occupying a dramatic position.
Upon the rocky floor of a large cavern, and opposite the mouth of the corridor, lay Jules Bardue, his head propped up by a bundle of furs. His cadaverous face was deathly pale, and his blood-shot eyes wandered about in their sockets like lost stars. His clothes were covered with blood, and it was Big Moccasin’s unsurgical examination of the rent in his breast which had drawn forth the groans our friends had heard. Shrinking against the wall of the cavern, in the full light of the blaze, the spectators beheld Kate Blount, as beautiful as ever; but her face wore the hue of death, and the look which she cast upon the wounded renegade was tinged with triumph, while she trembled at the volley of oaths that rung from his lips.
“Nehonesto loves to hear the Bloodhound groan!” grinned the Ojibwa. “The Young Hunter did not reach his heart, but we must trap the dogs. Nehonesto wants to torture the Bloodhound.”
“He is suffering enough now,” said the scout. “Big Moccasin must be rummaging among his vitals.”