toward the traitor. He had flung aside his useless
bow and held his tomahawk in his left hand.

He failed in both his intentions, though possibly he might have
succeeded had a few seconds more been at his service. The frightful cry
did arouse the Sauk, but it hardly passed the lips of the Shawanoe when
the gun of their enemy was fired, and Hay-uta, leaping half-way to his
feet, fell back mortally wounded.

The Pawnee saw the raging Shawanoe rushing toward him like a flaming
meteor. Knowing what it meant he dropped his gun and grasped his
tomahawk, ready to fight the man who threatened his life only a short
time before. The weapon was drawn but half way from his girdle, when,
without checking his speed, Deerfoot sent his hatchet as though fired
from the mouth of a cannon. The Pawnee could not have seen it coming
when his skull was cloven in twain, and, with a half-suppressed shriek,
he went to the earth, every spark of life driven from his body.

Deerfoot stood for a moment, panting and glaring at the miscreant whom
he had brought low. Then without speaking or seeking to recover his
tomahawk, he turned and walked toward the Sauk, knowing it was too late
to help him.

A long time before when the rifle on which the young warrior relied
flashed in the pan, he flung the weapon into the Ohio, and returned to
his loved bow and arrow; but the failure in the former case could not be
compared with that of the present; the bow had given out in the most
disastrous manner that can be imagined.

Deerfoot never shrank from any duty, no matter how trying to his
feelings. He supposed that Hay-uta was dead, but when he looked at him,
he saw that he was sitting as before with his back against the rock, his
arms folded, while he was gazing at the western sky as if lost in
pleasant meditation; but the deathly pallor visible through his paint,
showed he had but a short time to live.

Deerfoot hastened his steps, and Hay-uta turned his eyes with a smile
and feebly extended his hand. The Shawanoe eagerly took it and kneeled
on one knee.

"Why does my brother the brave Hay-uta smile?" he asked, in a voice as
low as that of a mother.

"Hay-uta was looking at the clouds in the sky and he saw the face of the
Great Spirit that Deerfoot told him about."

"Was the Great Spirit pleased?"

"He smiled and showed he loved Hay-uta,--who sees him again," added the
dying warrior, turning his gaze toward the billowy clouds, tinted with
gold in