High above Zane's cry, Deering's shouts and curses, Girty's shrieks of fear and fury, above the noise of wrestling bodies and dull blows, rose a deep booming roar.
It was Wetzel's awful cry of vengeance.
"Shake him loose," yelled Jonathan.
Baffled, he ran wildly around the wrestlers. Time and time again his gory tomahawk was raised only to be lowered. He found no opportunity to strike.
Girty's ghastly countenance gleamed at him from the whirl of legs, and arms and bodies. Then Wetzel's dark face, lighted by merciless eyes, took its place, and that gave way to Deering's broad features. The men being clad alike in buckskin, and their motions so rapid, prevented Zane from lending a helping hand.
Suddenly Deering was propelled from the mass as if by a catapult. His body straightened as it came down with a heavy thud. Zane pounced upon it with catlike quickness. Once more he swung aloft the bloody hatchet; then once more he lowered it, for there was no need to strike. The renegade's side was torn open from shoulder to hip. A deluge of blood poured out upon the moss. Deering choked, a bloody froth formed on his lips. His fingers clutched at nothing.
His eyes rolled violently and then were fixed in an awful stare.
The girl lying so quiet in the woods near the old hut was avenged!
Jonathan turned again to Wetzel and Girty, not with any intention to aid the hunter, but simply to witness the end of the struggle.
Without the help of the powerful Deering, how pitifully weak was the Deathshead of the frontier in the hands of the Avenger!
Jim Girty's tomahawk was thrown in one direction and his knife in another. He struggled vainly in the iron grip that held him.
Wetzel rose to his feet clutching the renegade. With his left arm, which had been bared in the fight, he held Girty by the front of his buckskin shirt, and dragged him to that tree which stood alone in the glade. He pushed him against it, and held him there.
The white dog leaped and snarled around the prisoner.
Girty's hands pulled and tore at the powerful arm which forced him hard against the beech. It was a brown arm, and huge with its bulging, knotted, rigid muscles. A mighty arm, strong as the justice which ruled it.
"Girty, thy race is run!" Wetzel's voice cut the silence like a steel whip.
The terrible, ruthless smile, the glittering eyes of doom seemed literally to petrify the renegade.
The hunter's right arm rose slowly. The knife in his hand quivered as if with eagerness. The long blade, dripping with Deering's blood, pointed toward the hilltop.
"Look thar! See 'em! Thar's yer friends!" cried Wetzel.
On the dead branches of trees standing far above the hilltop, were many great, dark birds. They sat motionless as if waiting.
"Buzzards! Buzzards!" hissed Wetzel.
Girty's ghastly face became an awful thing to look upon. No living countenance ever before expressed such fear, such horror, such agony. He foamed at the mouth, he struggled, he writhed. With a terrible fascination he watched that quivering, dripping blade, now poised high.
Wetzel's arm swung with the speed of a shooting star. He drove the blade into Girty's groin, through flesh and bone, hard and fast into the tree. He nailed the renegade to the beech, there to await his lingering doom.
"Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!" shrieked Girty, in cries of agony. He fumbled and pulled at the haft of the knife, but could not loosen it. He beat his breast, he tore his hair. His screams were echoed from the hilltop as if in mockery.
The white dog stood near, his hair bristling, his teeth snapping.
The dark birds sat on the dead branches above the hilltop, as if waiting for their feast.
