The Coolidge examiner., 1931-06-05

| sound her ears had caught Some
one was near the rock More than
One-there were two Their voices
were distinct though low, and they
stood so close that their forms
shut out the light from the Crev-
ice. To his aStonishment JeemS
heard a language which Hepsibah
Adams had taught him. and it
was not Mohawk. These were
Senecas. The discovery thrilled
him. He hated the Mohawk hatch
ct wielders who were the sCOurge
of the southern frontier, but the
Senecas, also brethren of the Six
Great Nations. he dOubIy feared,
for while the Mohawk killers were
the wolves of the wilderness. the
Senecas were it's foxes and pan
theirs combined. One was crea-
ture of darkness and surprise, the
other a lightning flash that came
and went with deadly swiftness.
He might trick Mohawk, but a
Seneca was the cleverest of his
kind.
He felt his blood turn cold as
| he listened to the two. One was
arguing that the arrow was a ruse
and that the fugitives were some
where not far away; the other,
whose mind was still on the huge
pile of stones, discredited the
thought that it had been thorough
~ searched and set off to find
some proof of his suspicious. The
| first of the two speakers re-
manned, and neither TOinette nor
Jeems could hear him move. Ii
seemed an intinity of time before
movement came again outside the
rock. Metal scraped il as the
| Seneca made a resting place of il
for his gun; footsteps went away,
returned. and halted close to the
narrow aparture through which
they had squeezed their bodies
| under the stones.
The savage was looking at the
entrance TO their hiding place
Jeems pictured the warrior. his
doubt and hesitation. and was as
sure in his visioning as though no
barrier lay between them. He
heard a grunt. The Seneca was
Oh his stomach, peering in, and
the grunt was an expression of
the foOlishness which had made
him grovel like this. In mo-
ment, he would rise and 20 away
But the moment passed. One
two-three-a dozen. Toinette was
like one dead-unbreathing. odd,
sensing a mighty danger, knowing
that il was coming, crouched like
sphinx.
At last the silence was broken
so softly that the disturbance
might have been that of a tress
of Toinette's hair falling from
her shoulder across Jeems' arm.
The Indian had thrust in his head.
He was listening-smelling-
advancing slyly and cautiously
like a ferret on the trail of prey.
There could no longer be doubt.
He knew there was something
under the rocks and. with true
Seneca courage, foreseeing glory
for himself even if death paid
for 1t, he was coming alone.
Every instinct reached its high
est tension in Jeems as a danger
approached which he would be
able to touch with his hands in
another moment or two. He re-
moved himself gently from Toi-
nette's embrace and prepared his
arms and body for action. Their
eyes had grown more accustomed
see him as he crouched forward
and gathered himself for the
struggle which would mean life or
death for them. Suddenly she un-
! derstOod that it would not be a
struggle. When the Seneca's head
appeared Jeems' hatchet would
smash it in She could see the
hatchet. 1t was poised to strike.
There would be no cry-no moan
only that terrible, hidden sound.
She listened to the doomed man
slowly coming.
The feathers of his tuft appeared
first, then the long black scalp
lock, the hair-plucked head, a pair
of shoulders. Jeems put all his
strength behind the appraised hatch
ct. He knew there must be but
one blow-well placed in the mid
die of the skull. That would end
it. He almost closed his eyes and
the hatchet descended a little, an
overwhelming sense of the horror
of the thing holding back his
stroke. 1t was not simply killing
it was murder. The Seneca turned
his head and looked up. His eyes
were trained for use at night, and
he saw more clearly than Jeems.
He saw the white face, the hatchet,
the death behind it, and he waited,
! transformed to stone. No voice
came to his lips and no movement
TO his cramped body in this mo-
ment of shock and stupefaction
when he must have realized that
all the power of his forest gods
could not help him. The pupils of
his eyes glowed darkly. He did not
breathe. Conscious of his impend-
ing end, he was amazed but not
terrified. His fine cOuntenance did
not shrink from the steel about to
sink into his brain.
For a second more the blade did
not fall, and in that second Jeems'
eyes and those of the savage met
steadily. Then the hatchet clattered
to the rock floor, and with a pro-