sound had come.  Now came the unmistakable thunder of horses’ hoofs pounding furiously on the rocky ground.  A moment of paralyzed inaction ensued.  The Indians stood bewildered, petrified.  Then on that ridge of rising ground stood, silhouetted against the blue sky, a great black horse with arching neck and flying mane.  Astride him sat a plumed warrior, who waved his rifle high in the air.  Again that shrill screeching yell came floating to the ears of the astonished Indians.

The prisoner had seen that horse and rider before; he had heard that long yell; his heart bounded with hope.  The Indians knew that yell; it was the terrible war-cry of the Hurons.

A horse followed closely after the leader, and then another appeared on the crest of the hill.  Then came two abreast, and then four abreast, and now the hill was black with plunging horses.  They galloped swiftly down the slope and into the narrow street of the village.  When the black horse entered the oval the train of racing horses extended to the top of the ridge.  The plumes of the riders streamed gracefully on the breeze; their feathers shone; their weapons glittered in the bright sunlight.

Never was there more complete surprise.  In the earlier morning the Hurons had crept up to within a rifle shot of the encampment, and at an opportune moment when all the scouts and runners were round the torture-stake, they had reached the hillside from which they rode into the village before the inhabitants knew what had happened.  Not an Indian raised a weapon.  There were screams from the women and children, a shouted command from Big Tree, and then all stood still and waited.

Thundercloud, the war chief of the Wyandots, pulled his black stallion back on his haunches not twenty feet from the prisoner at the stake.  His band of painted devils closed in behind him.  Full two hundred strong were they and all picked warriors tried and true.  They were naked to the waist.  Across their brawny chests ran a broad bar of flaming red paint; hideous designs in black and white covered their faces.  Every head had been clean-shaven except where the scalp lock bristled like a porcupine’s quills.  Each warrior carried a plumed spear, a tomahawk, and a rifle.  The shining heads, with the little tufts of hair tied tightly close to the scalp, were enough to show that these Indians were on the war-path.

From the back of one of the foremost horses a slender figure dropped and darted toward the prisoner at the stake.  Surely that wildly flying hair proved this was not a warrior.  Swift as a flash of light this figure reached the stake, the blazing fagots scattered right and left; a naked blade gleamed; the thongs fell from the prisoner’s wrists; and the front ranks of the Hurons opened and closed on the freed man.  The deliverer turned to the gaping Indians, disclosing to their gaze the pale and beautiful face of Myeerah, the Wyandot Princes.

“Summon your chief,” she commanded.