It was a pretty tight situation, and the boys were really alarmed for
Ted's safety, when out of the woods ran an apparition--a woman so
covered with blood as to be unrecognizable. But Stella uttered a scream.
She had seen that it was Singing Bird, who had been terribly injured by
her brute of a husband, who had evidently tortured her to get from her
the information she possessed about the mother lode.
Before any one could divine what she was about to do, the Indian girl
had sprung toward Running Bear and plunged a long, keen knife into his
back to the hilt.
It was an Indian's revenge. She had given him blood for blood.
Running Bear staggered backward, then suddenly wheeled, caught the knife
from the girl's hand, and was about to plunge it into her, when he fell
forward on his face and lay quite still.
Singing Bird weaved back and forth for a moment, then she, too, sank to
the ground.
When the horror of the sudden tragedy passed from them sufficiently, the
boys rushed to the side of the unhappy couple, but they both were dead.
That was the tragedy of the "Mother Lode Mine" on the upper Missouri,
which became the property of the Moon Valley Company, and which paid
enormously until it worked out, for it was only a pocket, thus putting
an end to the placer mining on the islands farther down the river.
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