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"I will give Mahng a handsome present whenever he shall come to receive it, that there may be no bad blood between us," was the answer; and with these concessions the Indians expressed themselves as well content. The proprietor of Tawtry House kept his word in regard to the presents; but Mahng never came to claim those set apart for him.
"His name is Mahng, and he is of the Ojibwas, though where he may be found I know not yet. But found he must be, for not only is he the murderer of thy father and my friend, and a traitor to all in whose veins runs Indian blood, but he has stolen and taken with him those most dear to thee and to me, thy sister and my daughter." "What!" cried Donald, springing to his feet. "My sister, say you?
"There is also Mahng," continued the savage diplomat, whose rule of action was that of his white colleagues in the same service; namely, to give as little and get as much as possible. "What will my brother give him to help the healing of his wounds?"
Finally, these things became so annoying that Sir William Johnson notified the Senecas to drive Mahng from their country, or hand him over to the whites for punishment, unless they wished to forfeit the valuable annual present, sent to them by their great Father of England, an instalment of which was then due.
"I know not," replied Ah-mo, sadly, "for it is now many weeks since we were cruelly separated, and whither she was taken I have no knowledge." "What?" cried Donald, "was she not with you on this very spot but a few minutes since? and did I not see her borne despairingly away in a canoe that is but just lost to sight?" "No, there was none with me save Mahng and his brother and their wives.
No, not if he, alone and unarmed, were forced to battle for her with a score of Mahng's treacherous followers. So thinking, he sprang down the steep trail with a reckless disregard of everything save the necessity of gaining its further end with all possible speed. Less than a minute had elapsed since he first caught sight of Mahng.
They were dead, choked to death by the fine threads of a gill-net. And now those same threads laid hold of the loons themselves, and a fearful struggle began. Mahng and his wife did not always keep their wings folded when they were under water. Sometimes they used them almost as they did in flying, and just now they had need of every muscle in their bodies.
But his mate was not with him, and a few hours later the fisherman found in his net the lifeless body of a drowned loon. Mahng went north. He had thought that his spring flight was over and that he would go no farther, but now the Glimmerglass was no longer home, and he spread his wings once more and took his way toward the Arctic Circle.
One girl in particular became so accomplished in the loon language that Mahng would often get very much excited as he conversed with her, and would sometimes let the boat creep nearer and nearer until they were only a few rods apart. And then, all of a sudden, he would duck his head and go under, perhaps in the very middle of a laugh. The siren was getting a little too close.
Now, here and there, they began to come across trembling wretches who had been with Mahng on that fatal night, but whom the terrible, far-reaching curse had since driven terror-stricken from him. Of these they learned that he had, from the first, made his way to the south to the country of the Shawnees, who had at first received him kindly.
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