Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/708

 . 21, 1861.]

report of Denis’s pistol and the wild death-shriek of the Young Panther, roused all the squaws, children, and dogs in the camp, and the wigwams were soon a scene of the wildest noise and confusion. Leaving Woodpecker to give them such an explanation of what had occurred as he chose, and to show them where the bodies of O’Brien and the Young Panther lay, Keefe and Denis hastened home as rapidly as possible, Keefe carrying Coral, who lay insensible in his arms.

“How pale she is,” said Denis, bending over her, as Keefe paused for a minute to rest; “she looks as if she was dead.” “It is the moonlight that makes her look so white,” said Keefe hurriedly. “But let us hasten on.”

Her slight small figure was so light a weight that it impeded their progress very little, and in a very short time they reached the house. Helen’s joy at seeing them was checked by Coral’s death-like aspect; but she tried to hide her alarm, lest it should add to the anxiety Keefe evidently felt, and the unrepressed grief of Denis.

“It is only exhaustion,” she said,” she will soon be better.”

She led them to the bed she had prepared for Coral while they were away, and there Keefe laid his unconscious burden tenderly down, and then, while Helen and Mrs. Wendell tried every means in their power for the sufferer’s relief, Keefe dragged Denis from the room. After sometime they were joined by Helen.

“Mrs. Wendell is afraid,” she said, “that she will continue some time in this state of stupor; her strength seems perfectly exhausted, but she