.

"Huh! White dog laugh at Red Fox? He say Red Fox face hideous?" the
redskin exclaimed jeeringly, as he pressed the horse to the race. "'Tis
well. Red Fox face bad--very bad; but white boy worse when Indian hand
have used knife!"

Then the boy understood the mystery. His careless words _had_ been
understood, as Bob had suggested. And his fate was to be vengeance of a
like mutilation of his own fair cheeks!

Not if he knew it!

It was little wonder if the lad felt his blood run cold as he listened
to the Indian's vaunt, and it is little wonder that his head swam until
he was near in reality to the very faintness that he had assumed.

But real pluck is never subdued for long. The very threat was enough to
rouse a strong determination to thwart the brutal intention, and his
mental decision was that which we have just recorded in the third
person: "Not if I know it!"

Red Fox had quite forgotten about the ermine robe. That was quite
Indian-like. The object of the moment was all that he cared about. To
gain that aim he would have sacrificed a thousand robes of costliest
fur--nay, even life itself, if he could have the satisfaction of
vengeance first.

Guiding the broncho by the swaying of his body and the occasional use
of a halter-rope, the redskin did not permit the animal to slacken speed
for an instant.

Once, owing to the stillness of his burden, he drew aside a portion of
the blanket to look at the boy's face.

He saw that the eyes were closed, and a fear came into his heart that
perhaps he was to be robbed of his pleasure after all.

But the lips trembled, and, on bending down the Indian could hear the
sound of breathing.

"Huh!" he laughed, as he replaced the cloth. "That good! Pale-face--he
sleep, but he wake soon when Red Fox make sign of totem. Then white boy
laugh not again at Indian. Red Fox, he laugh at hideous white boy."

A peal of harsh, savage laughter rang through the woods at this
delicious humour, and startled the horse so that it strained harder in
the gallop.

Through the woods, the burnt clearing, across the marsh where Bob had
tracked so steadily, the broncho passed in the mad race. It was rough
riding for the boy as he lay on his back--half across the Indian's knee,
with his head partly free of the blanket; but he set his teeth,
determined to bear the ordeal without a whimper, that he might be more
ready for the later critical moment.

Then something (he never knew what) startle