“Now all hands to the stone!” cried Joe Girty, who had observed the result of Leather-lips’ performance. “Leather-lips moved it a bit, and can we not throw it entirely back? I can throw near half a ton over my head, or could a short time since, though now I may be even stronger than ever. Now, braves, for your lives summon all the strength you ever possessed. If we move that stone our hands will grow redder than ever in her heart; if we fail, her hands will bathe in ours. Now! Snakes! I wish I was Samson!” The band exerted all its strength, and the result was almost unexpected--the stone was raised, and before it could settle down again, a second putting forth of strong hands had rolled it from the aperture. In the glare of the torch every sweaty face glowed with triumph and revenge. “Now!” said Turkey-foot, “she is ours, the Manitou put new strength into our limbs, and the power of Watchemenetoc could not prevail against it. We must now fight her. Wacomet and Leather-lips will creep back and crouch in the gloom beyond her eyes and the fires, in this dark hole. Turkey-foot and the white Ottawa will climb up into the hole over our heads, and attack her in the rear. Now go. She knows not that we have moved the stone; and when the hoot of the owl pierces your ears, spring from the blackness upon her.” Before Wacomet and Leather-lips turned to their mission, they saw the chief and the renegade draw themselves up into the opening, after extinguishing the torch. In the darkness near the orifice of the lower corridor crouched Wacomet and the sorcerer, waiting for the attacking signal. They knew that the Girl Avenger still occupied her post, for they could distinguish the barrel of her rifle between them and the torches. Once or twice Wacomet was on the point of rushing forth, but Leather-lips restrained him and bade him wait for the signal. At last it came, seemingly from the wooded banks of the stream beyond the cave, which circumstance the twain did not pause to note, but darted forward. Leather-lips was in the advance and grasped the glittering rifle-barrel as he bounded from the corridor. It fell on easy prey; there was no hand to contend with him for the possession of it, and no form, save those of his slaughtered countrymen, greeted him in the great cave. Where was the Girl Avenger, and where Girty and the Ottawa chief? Surely the latter had given the signal, for it had pierced their ears and impelled them forward. In the center of the cave, splendid targets for the unerring aim of the Girl Avenger, and statues of indecision, stood the two chiefs gazing into each other’s faces. The torches--or rather the brands which had now assumed the office of torches--bathed the entire cave in a mellow light and revealed every object to the statuary pair.