Zane Grey (29 page)

"We are safe," murmured Whispering Winds.

"Yet I have the same chill of fear whenever I look at the beautiful
spring, and at night as I awake to hear the soft babble of running
water, I freeze until my heart feels like cold lead. Winds, I'm not
a coward; but I can't help this feeling. Perhaps, it's only the
memory of that awful night with Wetzel."

"An Indian feels so when he passes to his unmarked grave," answered
Winds, gazing solemnly at him. "Whispering Winds does not like this
fancy of yours. Let us leave Beautiful Spring. You are almost well.
Ah! if Whispering Winds should lose you! I love you!"

"And I love you, my beautiful wild flower," answered Joe, stroking
the dark head so near his own.

A tender smile shone on his face. He heard a slight noise without
the cave, and, looking up, saw that which caused the smile to fade
quickly.

"Mose!" he called, sharply. The dog was away chasing rabbits.

Whispering Winds glanced over her shoulder with a startled cry,
which ended in a scream.

Not two yards behind her stood Jim Girty.

Hideous was his face in its triumphant ferocity. He held a long
knife in his hand, and, snarling like a mad wolf, he made a forward
lunge.

Joe raised himself quickly; but almost before he could lift his hand
in defense, the long blade was sheathed in his breast.

Slowly he sank back, his gray eyes contracting with the old steely
flash. The will to do was there, but the power was gone forever.

"Remember, Girty, murderer! I am Wetzel's friend," he cried, gazing
at his slayer with unutterable scorn.

Then the gray eyes softened, and sought the blanched face of the
stricken maiden.

"Winds," he whispered faintly.

She was as one frozen with horror.

The gray eyes gazed into hers with lingering tenderness; then the
film of death came upon them.

The renegade raised his bloody knife, and bent over the prostrate
form.

Whispering Winds threw herself upon Girty with the blind fury of a
maddened lioness. Cursing fiercely, he stabbed her once, twice,
three times. She fell across the body of her lover, and clasped it
convulsively.

Girty gave one glance at his victims; deliberately wiped the gory
knife on Wind's leggins, and, with another glance, hurried and
fearful, around the glade, he plunged into the thicket.

An hour passed. A dark stream crept from the quiet figures toward
the spring. It dyed the moss and the green violet leaves. Slowly it
wound its way to the clear water, dripping between the pale blue
flowers. The little fall below the spring was no longer snowy white;
blood had tinged it red.

A dog came bounding into the glade. He leaped the brook, hesitated
on the bank, and lowered his nose to sniff at the water. He bounded
up the bank to the cavern.

A long, mournful howl broke the wilderness's quiet.

Another hour passed. The birds were silent; the insects still. The
sun sank behind the trees, and the shades of evening gathered.

The ferns on the other side of the glade trembled. A slight rustle
of dead leaves disturbed the stillness. The dog whined, then barked.
The tall form of a hunter rose out of the thicket, and stepped into
the glade with his eyes bent upon moccasin tracks in the soft moss.

The trail he had been following led him to this bloody spring.

"I might hev knowed it," he muttered.

Wetzel, for it was he, leaned upon his long rifle while his keen
eyes took in the details of the tragedy. The whining dog, the bloody
water, the motionless figures lying in a last embrace, told the sad
story.

"Joe an' Winds," he muttered.

Only a moment did he remain lost in sad reflection. A familiar
moccasin-print in the sand on the bank pointed westward. He examined
it carefully.

"Two hours gone," he muttered. "I might overtake him."

Then his motions became swift. With two blows of his tomahawk he
secured a long piece of grapevine. He took a heavy stone from the
bed of the brook. He carried Joe to the spring, and, returning for
Winds, placed her beside her lover. This done, he tied one end of
the grapevine around the stone, and wound the other about the dead
bodies.

He pushed them off the bank into the spring. As the lovers sank into
the deep pool they turned, exposing first Winds' sad face, and then
Joe's. Then they sank out of sight. Little waves splashed on the
shore of the pool; the ripple disappeared, and the surface of the
spring became tranquil.

Wetzel stood one moment over the watery grave of the maiden who had
saved him, and the boy who had loved him. In the gathering gloom his
stalwart form assumed gigantic proportions, and when he raised his
long arm and shook his clenched fist toward the west, he resembled a
magnificent statue of dark menace.

With a single bound he cleared the pool, and then sped out of the
glade. He urged the dog on Girty's trail, and followed the eager
beast toward the west. As he disappeared, a long, low sound like the
sigh of the night wind swelled and moaned through the gloom.

When the first ruddy rays of the rising sun crimsoned the eastern
sky, Wetzel slowly wound his way down a rugged hill far west of
Beautiful Spring. A white dog, weary and footsore, limped by his
side. Both man and beast showed evidence of severe exertion.

The hunter stopped in a little cave under a projecting stone, and,
laying aside his rifle, began to gather twigs and sticks. He was
particular about selecting the wood, and threw aside many pieces
which would have burned well; but when he did kindle a flame it
blazed hotly, yet made no smoke.

He sharpened a green stick, and, taking some strips of meat from his
pocket, roasted them over the hot flame. He fed the dog first. Mose
had crouched close on the ground with his head on his paws, and his
brown eyes fastened upon the hunter.

"He had too big a start fer us," said Wetzel, speaking as if the dog
were human. It seemed that Wetzel's words were a protest against the
meaning in those large, sad eyes.

Then the hunter put out the fire, and, searching for a more secluded
spot, finally found one on top of the ledge, where he commanded a
good view of his surroundings. The weary dog was asleep. Wetzel
settled himself to rest, and was soon wrapped in slumber.

About noon he awoke. He arose, stretched his limbs, and then took an
easy position on the front of the ledge, where he could look below.
Evidently the hunter was waiting for something. The dog slept on. It
was the noonday hour, when the stillness of the forest almost
matched that of midnight. The birds were more quiet than at any
other time during daylight.

Wetzel reclined there with his head against the stone, and his rifle
resting across his knees.

He listened now to the sounds of the forest. The soft breeze
fluttering among the leaves, the rain-call of the tree frog, the caw
of crows from distant hilltops, the sweet songs of the thrush and
oriole, were blended together naturally, harmoniously.

But suddenly the hunter raised his head. A note, deeper than the
others, a little too strong, came from far down the shaded hollow.
To Wetzel's trained ear it was a discord. He manifested no more than
this attention, for the birdcall was the signal he had been
awaiting. He whistled a note in answer that was as deep and clear as
the one which had roused him.

Moments passed. There was no repetition of the sound. The songs of
the other birds had ceased. Besides Wetzel there was another
intruder in the woods.

Mose lifted his shaggy head and growled. The hunter patted the dog.
In a few minutes the figure of a tall man appeared among the laurels
down the slope. He stopped while gazing up at the ledge. Then, with
noiseless step, he ascended the ridge, climbed the rocky ledge, and
turned the corner of the stone to face Wetzel. The newcomer was
Jonathan Zane.

"Jack, I expected you afore this," was Wetzel's greeting.

"I couldn't make it sooner," answered Zane. "After we left
Williamson and separated, I got turned around by a band of several
hundred redskins makin' for the Village of Peace. I went back again,
but couldn't find any sign of the trail we're huntin'. Then I makes
for this meetin' place. I've been goin' for some ten hours, and am
hungry."

"I've got some bar ready cooked," said Wetzel, handing Zane several
strips of meat.

"What luck did you have?"

"I found Girty's trail, an old one, over here some eighteen or
twenty miles, an' follered it until I went almost into the Delaware
town. It led to a hut in a deep ravine. I ain't often surprised, but
I wus then. I found the dead body of that girl, Kate Wells, we
fetched over from Fort Henry. Thet's sad, but it ain't the
surprisin' part. I also found Silvertip, the Shawnee I've been
lookin' fer. He was all knocked an' cut up, deader'n a stone.
There'd been somethin' of a scrap in the hut. I calkilate Girty
murdered Kate, but I couldn't think then who did fer Silver, though
I allowed the renegade might hev done thet, too. I watched round an'
seen Girty come back to the hut. He had ten Injuns with him, an'
presently they all made fer the west. I trailed them, but didn't
calkilate it'd be wise to tackle the bunch single-handed, so laid
back. A mile or so from the hut I came across hoss tracks minglin'
with the moccasin-prints. About fifteen mile or from the Delaware
town, Girty left his buckskins, an' they went west, while he stuck
to the hoss tracks. I was onto his game in a minute. I cut across
country fer Beautiful Spring, but I got there too late. I found the
warm bodies of Joe and thet Injun girl, Winds. The snake hed
murdered them."

"I allow Joe won over Winds, got away from the Delaware town with
her, tried to rescue Kate, and killed Silver in the fight. Girty
probably was surprised, an' run after he had knifed the girl."

"'Pears so to me. Joe had two knife cuts, an' one was an old wound."

"You say it was a bad fight?"

"Must hev been. The hut was all knocked in, an' stuff scattered
about. Wal, Joe could go some if he onct got started."

"I'll bet he could. He was the likeliest lad I've seen for many a
day."

"If he'd lasted, he'd been somethin' of a hunter an' fighter."

"Too bad. But Lord! you couldn't keep him down, no more than you can
lots of these wild young chaps that drift out here."

"I'll allow he had the fever bad."

"Did you hev time to bury them?"

"I hedn't time fer much. I sunk them in the spring."

"It's a pretty deep hole," said Zane, reflectively. "Then, you and
the dog took Girty's trail, but couldn't catch up with him. He's now
with the renegade cutthroats and hundreds of riled Indians over
there in the Village of Peace."

"I reckon you're right."

A long silence ensued. Jonathan finished his simple repast, drank
from the little spring that trickled under the stone, and, sitting
down by the dog, smoothed out his long silken hair.

"Lew, we're pretty good friends, ain't we?" he asked, thoughtfully.

"Jack, you an' the colonel are all the friends I ever hed, 'ceptin'
that boy lyin' quiet back there in the woods."

"I know you pretty well, and ain't sayin' a word about your runnin'
off from me on many a hunt, but I want to speak plain about this
fellow Girty."

"Wal?" said Wetzel, as Zane hesitated.

"Twice in the last few years you and I have had it in for the same
men, both white-livered traitors. You remember? First it was Miller,
who tried to ruin my sister Betty, and next it was Jim Girty, who
murdered our old friend, as good an old man as ever wore moccasins.
Wal, after Miller ran off from the fort, we trailed him down to the
river, and I points across and says, 'You or me?' and you says,
'Me.' You was Betty's friend, and I knew she'd be avenged. Miller is
lyin' quiet in the woods, and violets have blossomed twice over his
grave, though you never said a word; but I know it's true because I
know you."

Zane looked eagerly into the dark face of his friend, hoping perhaps
to get some verbal assurance there that his belief was true. But
Wetzel did not speak, and he continued:

"Another day not so long ago we both looked down at an old friend,
and saw his white hair matted with blood. He'd been murdered for
nothin'. Again you and me trailed a coward and found him to be Jim
Girty. I knew you'd been huntin' him for years, and so I says, 'Lew,
you or me?' and you says, 'Me.' I give in to you, for I knew you're
a better man than me, and because I wanted you to have the
satisfaction. Wal, the months have gone by, and Jim Girty's still
livin' and carryin' on. Now he's over there after them poor
preachers. I ain't sayin', Lew, that you haven't more agin him than
me, but I do say, let me in on it with you. He always has a gang of
redskins with him; he's afraid to travel alone, else you'd had him
long ago. Two of us'll have more chance to get him. Let me go with
you. When it comes to a finish, I'll stand aside while you give it
to him. I'd enjoy seein' you cut him from shoulder to hip. After he
leaves the Village of Peace we'll hit his trail, camp on it, and
stick to it until it ends in his grave."

The earnest voice of the backwoodsman ceased. Both men rose and
stood facing each other. Zane's bronzed face was hard and tense,
expressive of an indomitable will; Wetzel's was coldly dark, with
fateful resolve, as if his decree of vengeance, once given, was as
immutable as destiny. The big, horny hands gripped in a viselike
clasp born of fierce passion, but no word was spoken.

Far to the west somewhere, a befrilled and bedizened renegade
pursued the wild tenor of his ways; perhaps, even now steeping his
soul in more crime, or staining his hands a deeper red, but sleeping
or waking, he dreamed not of this deadly compact that meant his
doom.