Twice Bought

Instantly, and before Tolly or Betty could warn their friends of what was coming, the surrounding foliage parted, as if by magic, and a circle of yelling and painted Redskins sprang upon the white men. Resistance was utterly out of the question. They were overwhelmed as if by a cataract and, almost before they could realise what had happened, the arms of all the men were pinioned behind them.

At that trying hour little Tolly Trevor proved himself to be more of a man than most of his friends had hitherto given him credit for.

The savages, regarding him as a weak little boy, had paid no attention to him, but confined their efforts to the overcoming of the powerful and by no means submissive men with whom they had to deal.

Tolly’s first impulse was to rush to the rescue of Paul Bevan; but he was remarkably quick-witted, and, when on the point of springing, observed that no tomahawk was wielded or knife drawn. Suddenly grasping the wrist of Betty, who had also naturally felt the impulse to succour her father, he exclaimed—

“Stop! Betty. They don’t mean murder. You an’ I can do nothing against so many. Keep quiet; p’r’aps they’ll leave us alone.”

As he spoke a still deeper idea flashed into his little brain. To the surprise of Betty, he suddenly threw his arms round her waist and clung to her as if for protection with a look of fear in his face, and when the work of binding the captives was completed the Indians found him still labouring to all appearance under great alarm. Unaco cast on him one look of supreme scorn, and then, leaving him, like Betty, unbound, turned towards Paul Bevan.

“The white man is one of wicked band?” he said, in his broken English.

“I don’t know what ye mean, Redskin,” replied Paul; “but speak your own tongue, I understand it well enough to talk with ye.”

The Indian repeated the question in his native language, and Paul, replying in the same, said—

“No, Redskin, I belong to no band, either wicked or good.”

“How come you, then, to be in company with this man?” demanded the Indian.

In reply Paul gave a correct account of the cause and object of his being there, explained that the starving man before them was the friend for whom he sought, that Betty was his daughter, though how she came to be there beat his comprehension entirely, and that the botanist was a stranger, whose name even he did not yet know.

“It is false,” returned the chief. “The white man speaks with a forked tongue. He is one of the murderers who have slain my wife and my child.”

A dark fierce frown passed over the chief’s countenance as he spoke, but it was quickly replaced by the habitual look of calm gravity.

“What can stop me,” he said, reverting again to English as he turned and addressed Betty, “from killing you as my wife was killed by white man?”

“My God can stop you,” answered the girl, in a steady voice, though her heart beat fast and her face was very pale.

“Your God!” exclaimed the savage. “Will your God defend the wicked?”

“No, but He will pardon the wicked who come to Him in the name of Jesus, and He will defend the innocent.”

“Innocent!” repeated Unaco, vehemently, as he turned and pointed to the botanist. “Does you call this man innocent?”

“I know nothing about that man,” returned the girl, earnestly; “but I do know that my father and I, and all the rest of us, are innocent of any crime against you.”

For a few seconds the savage chief gazed steadily at Betty, then turning towards the botanist he took a step towards the spot where he sat and looked keenly into his face.

The botanist returned the gaze with equal steadiness through his blue spectacles.

Chapter Fourteen

“The big man with the blue glass eyes is a villain,” said the Indian chief, after a long scrutiny of the botanist’s countenance.

“So some of my mistaken friends have thought,” returned the man, speaking for the first time in his natural voice, which caused a thrill to pass through Paul Bevan’s frame.

“He is a thief,” continued the chief, still gazing steadily at the blue glasses, “and a murderer!”

“He’s all that, and liar and deceiver into the bargain,” thought Tolly Trevor, but Tolly did not speak; he only vented his feelings in a low chuckle, for he saw, or thought he saw, that the robber’s career was about to receive a check. As the thought passed through his brain, however, he observed from the position in which he stood that Stalker—for, as the reader has doubtless perceived, it was he—was working his hands about in a very soft slow, mysterious, and scarcely observable manner.

“Oho!” thought Tolly, “is that your little game? Ha! I’ll spoil it for you!”

He quietly took up a piece of firewood and began, as it were, to amuse himself therewith.

“You has many faces, many colours,” continued Unaco, “and too many eyes.”

At the last word he plucked the blue glasses off the botanist’s nose and flung them into the fire.

“My enemy!” gasped Paul Bevan, turning first very pale and then very red, as he glared like a chained tiger at his foe.

“You knows him now?” said Unaco, turning abruptly to Paul.

“Yes; I knows him!”

“The white man with the forked tongue say jus’ now he not knows him.”

“Ay, Redskin, an’ I said the truth, for he’s a rare deceiver—always has been—an’ can pass himself off for a’most anything. I knows him as my mortal foe. Cast my hands loose an’ give me a knife an’ you shall see.”

“O father! your promise—remember!” exclaimed Betty.

“True, dear lass, true; I forgot,” returned Paul, with a humbled look; “yet it is hard for a man to see him there, grinning like a big baboon, an’ keep his hands off him.”

During this dialogue the Indians looked from one speaker to another with keen interest, although none but their chief understood a word of what was said; and Stalker took advantage of their attention being turned for the moment from himself to carry out what Tolly had styled his “little game,” all unaware that the boy was watching him like a lynx.

Among other shifts and devices with which the robber chief had become familiar, he had learned the conjuror’s method of so arranging his limbs while being bound, that he could untie his bonds in a marvellous manner. On the present occasion, however, he had been tied by men who were expert in the use of deerskin thongs, and he found some difficulty in loosening them without attracting attention, but he succeeded at last. He had been secured only by the wrists and forearms, and remained sitting still a few seconds after he was absolutely free; then, seizing what he believed to be his opportunity, he leapt up, dashed the Indian nearest him to the earth, and sprang like a deer towards the bushes.

But Tolly Trevor was ready for him. That daring youth plunged right in front of the big botanist and stooped. Stalker tripped over him and came violently to the ground on his forehead and nose. Before he could rise Tolly had jumped up, and swinging his billet of wood once in the air, brought it down with all his little might on the robber’s crown. It sufficed to stupefy him, and when he recovered he found himself in the close embrace of three muscular Redskins.

“Well done, Tolly Trevor!” shouted Paul Bevan, enthusiastically.

Even Tom Brixton, who had been looking on in a state of inexpressible surprise, managed to utter a feeble cheer.

But the resources of the robber were not yet exhausted. Finding himself in the grasp of overwhelming numbers, he put forth all his strength, as if to make a final effort, and then, suddenly collapsing, dropped limp and helpless to the ground, as a man does when he is stabbed to the heart.

The savages knew the symptoms well—too well! They rose, breathless, and each looked inquiringly at the other, as though to say, “Who did the deed?” Before they discovered that the deed had not been done at all, Stalker sprang up, knocked down two of them, overturned the third, and, bounding into the bushes, was out of sight in a few seconds.

The whole band, of course, went yelling after him, except their chief, who stood with an angry scowl upon his visage, and awaited the return of his braves.

One by one they came back panting and discomfited, for the white robber had outrun them all and got clear away.

“Well, now, it was cliverly done,” remarked Paddy Flinders, finding his tongue at last; “an’ I raly can’t but feel that he desarves to git off this time. All the same I hope he’ll be nabbed at last an’ recaive his due—bad luck to him!”

“Now, Redskin—” began Bevan.

“My name is Unaco,” interrupted the chief, with a look of dignity.