The plucky girl did not wait for permission, but took a knife from one of the men and began to cut away Arnold’s shirt sleeve. I had a large handkerchief in my pocket, which I produced and gave to her. Meanwhile I glanced forward to Captain Rudstone, who was kneeling beside the Indian, with his back turned to us. I saw him look quickly and furtively over his shoulder, and his hands seemed to be actively engaged. I noted this, as I say, but at the time I thought nothing of the incident.
A moment later the captain rose to his feet and turned round. He met my eyes, and his own dropped; for a passing second he looked slightly confused.
“Here’s a queer go, Carew,” he called. “You’ve killed your man, and I fancy there is something on him that will be of personal interest to you.”
I hurried to the spot, in company with half a dozen others. The Indian lay dead on his side—an elderly, wrinkled savage with a feathered scalp-lock, dressed in buffalo robe, leggings and beaded moccasins. His musket was clutched in his hand, and blood was oozing from a wound in the region of the heart.
“What do you mean, Rudstone?” I asked.
He pointed silently to the redskin’s throat and bending closer, I saw a necklace of the teeth and claws of wild beasts. Something else was strung with it—a tiny locket of smooth gold—and the sight of it made my heart leap. With a single jerk, I tore the necklace loose, and the locket fell in the snow. I picked it up, looked at it sharply, and suspicion became a certainty.
“This is the working of Providence!” I cried hoarsely, “I have committed an act of just retribution. Look: the Indian killed my father nearly six years ago, and now he has died by my hand.”
“I suspected as much,” said Captain Rudstone. “I remembered your speaking of a locket that your father always carried, and that was missing from his body.”
“This is the locket,” I replied. “I know it well! And here lies the murderer! Thank Heaven, I have avenged my father’s death!”
“There is doubtless something in it,” suggested the captain. “Most likely a miniature portrait.”