“Now I am free!” she cried, and still clinging to the bugle-horn, she turned from the scene, and ran beyond the cordon of wigwams.
The thought of escape lent new speed to her limbs, and she was just entering a line of cottonwoods, that stood like stately sentinels in the starlight, when a figure rose from the ground in her very path.
In an instant she saw the plumes of an Indian warrior, and halted with the famous horn drawn menacingly back.
But her right arm was caught before it could descend, and she saw a grotesque red face peering into hers.
“Go!” said a voice, and Dora was pushed on in no very gentle manner.
But the next words sent a thrill through every fibre of her frame.
“Only a poor, sneakin' Injun gal! I don't hev dealings with thet kind o' truck. I'm hyar arter a white 'un, an' I'll make the dogs open thar eyes afore to-morrow night. For I'm the Screamin' Eagle of the Smoky Roost! a reg'lar sky-scraper!”
Dora Lightway stood still like a person rooted to the ground with amazement.
“Who ar' ye look'n' at? Move yer boots, or the Screamin' Eagle—not Red Jingo of the Little Big-Horn—will accelerate yer pace!”
Weeping Leaf, or Dora, saw the figure step forward, as these words smote her ear.
“He cannot be my friend,” she muttered. “To him let my skin be red and not white. He's a white man, despite his disguise—one of those renegades I have often read about.”
Again the girl fled, and left the strange being alone in the path which she had lately traversed.
“I mustn't let my tongue slip any more,” mused the man, thus left near the edge of the cottonwoods. “I must be a wolf, jest like the rest of the pack. I'm the Red Jingo; the Screamin' Eagle of the Smoky Roost is lost till I get out of this pickle. Ef I war huntin' red gals, what a nice one I could hev picked up; but I want to get the white 'un, the sister of that young devil, Midnight Jack.”
“Holy Moses!” exclaimed the speaker, starting from the apparition standing against the nearest as well as one of the largest trees. “War I talkin' aloud, Mid—no! Runnin' Water?”
“Slightly,” was the reply, as the two Indian-like figures came together and grasped hands. “You were talking about a girl—did she pass here?”
“Yes, an Indian crittur. Hev ye been to the tree?”