“I guess not,” he said, “she wasn’t a bit like any of them.”
Keefe turned again to the squaws.
“One of your young women was in our village last night,” he said, “perhaps she met with the white girl we are in search of.”
“It was the Young Panther,” said a quick-eyed girl, looking up and shaking back her long locks, “she went for bead for mocassin; she gave Tamarac some by-and-by,” and she showed her treasure wrapped in a piece of deer-skin.
“And where is the Young Panther now?” asked Keefe.
“Night-hawk is sick to-day, and the Young Panther takes care of him.”
“Let Tamarac take me to the Young Panther,” said Keefe, “and she shall have this,” and he took from his pocket a pretty little penknife with an ornamented ivory handle.
“If she is in the lodge with Night-hawk I dare not go in,” said the girl. “Tamarac is afraid of Night-hawk,” but she looked with eager longing at the knife as she spoke.
“Take us to her, and you shall have this, too,” said Denis, touching a coloured silk handkerchief which he wore round his neck.
The girl’s eyes literally blazed with delight; she looked at a squaw, who seemed to be her mother, and who muttered a word or two in reply to her questioning glance.
“Tamarac will go,” she said, starting up and beckoning the young men to follow her.
Winding in and out amongst the lodges she led up the bank, and had nearly reached its summit, when, springing out of a little thicket of cedars, the Young Panther stood before them. She was dressed as she had been the night before, and drawing up her tall and stately form to its full height, she stared at the strangers with haughty boldness.
“The Young Panther is here,” said Tamarac, stopping short, and looking eagerly at Keefe and Denis for their coveted gifts.
“That’s the girl, and no mistake,” said Con.
The knife and handkerchief were soon in Tamarac’s hands, and receiving them with rapture she withdrew a few steps and sat down to examine and admire them, while Keefe addressed the Young Panther.
“The pride of the Indian wigwams came to the white man’s village last night; did she meet one of their maidens wandering in the woods and shelter her from the rain in her lodge?”
“The steps of the Young Panther are swift and light,” said the Indian beauty, contemptuously, “and she does not linger on her way. No white girl crossed her path last night: if the Young Panther had met one, she would have showed her the way to her own lodges; the Indian wigwams are too rude for such tender flowers.”
Denis turned away in an agony of disappointment, for, from the time he had heard of the Indian girl having been seen in the village, he had persuaded himself that Coral would be found with her, but Keefe continued to gaze keenly and curiously at the beautiful savage, who, standing a step or two above them on the bank, looked down at them with the most imperious disdain.
“It is good,” he said; “the Young Panther is strong and wise, as well as beautiful,—happy is the brave in whose wigwam she dwells. Come,” he continued, addressing Denis, “let us go.”
He moved away, and, with a sad and hopeless mien. Denis did the same,—Con Doyle, Woodpecker followed, and in a few minutes they were all out of sight of the Indian camp. Then Keefe suffered Denis and Con to precede him, and tapping ‘Voodpecker on the shoulder, he detained him behind the others.
“I know what you got to say,” said Woodpecker, before Keefe could speak; “that young squaw knows something of the lost bird; 1 saw it in her eye.”
“Did you?” exclaimed Keefe, “so did I; and I saw more than that. Did you see that brooch in her jacket? 1 know it well, it was Fred O’Brien’s. It is he they call Night-hawk; it is he who has got hold of Coral again, I’m sure of it, though how he has managed it is a mystery.”
“A what?” said Woodpecker; “you talk too big; me no understand.”
“No matter,” said Keefe, “you understand one thing, that I always keep my word.”
“It is so; when Keefe Dillon says he’ll do a thing it is done.”
“Well, you know my new rifle?” Woodpecker’s eyes glittered. “You think it a good one?”
“Can’t be beat,” said Woodpecker, energetically.
Hear me, then. Hang round the wigwa.ms—find out which is O’Bricn’s lodge and where he keeps Coral. Lead me there to-night, and whether [ live or die I’ll take care that the rifle shall be yours.”
Keefe well knew that the only way to ensure Coral‘s safe recovery was to take O’Brien by surprise, and if Woodpecker should be seen by any of the Indians wandering about the encampment he was less likely to be suspected than any one else, and, besides, Keefe had often remarked in him a strange power of stealthy observation, a characteristic no doubt belonging to his Indian blood. Well pleased with the commission he had received, and highly delighted at the prospect of receiving so valuable a reward, Woodpecker nodded his head in emphatic assent, and glided away through the trees, Keefe looking anxiously after him.
“I’ll wait till night,” he said to himself, “then if he does not come I must try some other plan.”
Filled with thoughts of Coral, he strode after Denis, who plodding gloomily on with his eyes bent on the ground, had never remarked his companion’s absence. Unwilling to excite his hopes by what might, after all, prove false suspicious, and apprehensive, besides of some outbreak from his impatient temper, if he once suspected that Coral was in O’Brien’s power, that might ruin all, Keefe thought it better not to let Denis know anything of his conjectures till they had become certainty, or at least till the time that Woodpecker’s return might be expected. Con’s quick wit, Keefe soon saw, had more than half divined the secret of Woodpecker‘s departure, but he might be trusted not to make it known to any one. Accordingly he did not oppose Denis and