it took an eye as keen as that of Deerfoot to tell where
his enemies would appear. But he coolly awaited them, though his
calmness was the fearful calm of a fury such as even he rarely knew.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DEFIANCE.

The expression of the face of Deerfoot was terrible. The whole fury of
his nature was at white heat. He knew that the two Winnebagos had set
out to commit a fearful crime, and it was his work to stay their hands.
There was but the single way in which they could be stayed.

The young Shawanoe kept back a couple of paces from the edge of the
ravine, where the shadow of the stunted trees above would hide him from
his foes when they should come in sight. He held his gun pointed and
cocked. Though his passion had the glow of the furnace, he was as calm
as death.

[Illustration: "There was a fierce whizz like the rush of an eagle's
wing."]

He had not long to wait. By and by a low guttural exclamation struck his
ear, and his hearing, strung to a marvelously fine point, caught the
sound of the soft moccasins on the hard earth. Less than a minute later
the form of the Wolf came into the moonlight, as a bather emerges from
the side of a lake. Seeing the open ravine at his feet, he stopped, and
instantly his companion, Wau-ko-mia-tan, appeared at his side.

They quickly saw that the leap was an easy one.

"Wau-ko-mia-tan will leap across," said that warrior, "then the Wolf
will follow; let us lose no time, for the Shawanoe may be gone."

The speaker recoiled a single pace and gathered his muscles for the
leap. He took one quick step and made a terrific bound upward and
outward, straight for the rocky brink whereon Deerfoot the Shawanoe
instantly stepped into the moonlight.

The Winnebago was in mid-air, crouching like a leaper, with his legs
gathered under him and his arms at his side, when there was a fierce
whiz, like the rush of an eagle's wing, something flashed in the
moonlight, and the tomahawk, driven by a lightning-like sweep of the
Shawanoe's arm, was buried in the chest of the Winnebago as it would
have sunk in so much sodden earth.

An ear-splitting screech burst from the throat of the smitten warrior,
who struck the edge of the ravine like a bundle of rags flung thither,
and then tumbled to the bottom as dead as the jagged rock on which he
lay.

The Wolf stood transfixed, unable to understand what had taken place.
Then he saw the figure of the youthful warrior on the other side