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Updated: June 26, 2025
Steadily the nights grew longer, and the working hours less. With each passing day the store of perfect pelts mounted. They were pegged out and dried, and set ready for storing at the moment the frost should bite through the air and hold them imperishable against their journey down to Keeko's home. Life was almost uneventful in the monotony of success.
But for all her ability the whole of Keeko's equipment was only a splendid veneer. Under it all she remained the simple-hearted girl, the loyally devoted daughter. Her mother was still her first concern, a concern that haunted her in the far distant woods, and on the waters of the river, in storm and sunshine alike, and amidst the snows of the winter trail.
It came from behind her, somewhere behind the fort. The words were indistinguishable in their violence, but, as she listened, there came another sound with which she was all too familiar. It was the sickening flog of a rawhide quirt on a human body. It was her step-father flogging an Indian, with all the brutality of his ungovernable temper. Keeko's eyes flashed in the direction of the canoes.
But she refrained, and, somehow, sick at the thought of his purpose, she still realized a thrill at the object of it all. She looked at the roots of the overhanging tree and shuddered. They were partly torn out of the ground. Marcel returned with his trophy. It was a burden of no mean weight. And Keeko's recognition of the fact only added to her fears. "How ?" she began.
And, in a moment, her worst suspicions were realized. Her boy, Snake Foot, was bound to the tree-trunk. Bared to the waist, cowering but silent, he was shrinking under the cruel blows of the quirt. Nicol, his dark eyes blazing with a merciless fury, was flinging every ounce of his strength into each blow of the terrible weapon in his hand. Keeko's horrified eyes missed nothing.
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