THE AVENGER OF WOUNDED KNEE.

The renegade, as Vance Bernard is now known to be, rode slowly along over the rough country, holding on to the rein of the horse ridden by Jennie Woodbridge.

As they wound around a rugged spur, the sharp report of a rifle was heard.

"My God! I have received my death wound!" cried the renegade, and he reeled in his saddle, drew rein, and slowly slipped from his saddle to the ground.

Instantly Jennie checked her horse and sat motionless in her saddle, gazing about her in a dazed sort of way, when suddenly there bounded into the trail before her the tall form of a Sioux chief. Seizing the bridle-rein of Jennie's horse, he said in a voice full of triumph:

"The Snow Flower cannot run away from the Red Hatchet."

They were his last words, for a form came bounding toward him, and the chief turned quickly and raised his rifle.

But he was not as quick as the one running upon him, for a revolver shot rang out, and Red Hatchet fell dead, a bullet in the center of his forehead.

"Do not be alarmed, Miss Woodbridge, for I am Kit Carey now, not Moon Eyes, the medicine man," and the soldier stepped forward, while he added:

"The sooner we get away from here the better for us."

"But he is not dead, sir," cried Jennie, now finding her voice and pointing to Vance Bernard.

"Ah! I supposed Red Hatchet had made no mistake. Yes, he is alive, and——"

"Yes, I am dying, Captain Carey, for your words tell me who you are, and in your disguise as Moon Eyes you heard enough to hang me. It is better that I die by the redskin's bullet than upon the gallows."

"You deserve the gallows, Bernard, most certainly, for I now know you as renegade, road agent, and a Black Hill's bandit, by your own confession in the Sioux council lodge. But I am not one to strike a man when he is down, and if you will allow me I will aid you to your horse."

"No, no, let me die here; for I cannot live half an hour at longest. Then, too, I have something to tell this child, and it will ease my conscience, and you are to hear, too, Captain Carey."

"If you mean that she is not your child, she told me that in the hostiles' camp."

"There is more to tell, for it was I who attacked the stage-coach in which she and her mother were coming west to join Brookes Woodbridge, her father. The mother was killed by a random shot, and I took the girl and sent her to my wife, for I knew Woodbridge had struck it very rich in the mines, and she would be his heiress. Well, when he was about to go east, never having known of his wife's death, I killed him——"

"You murdered my father?" gasped Jennie, in a tone of horror.

"Yes, I confess all now."

"And my mother, too—now I know why I never could love you, as my father, though so I believed you to be."

"Yes, I am guilty of the crimes of murder and robbery, and more. I was a renegade chief over the Sioux against my own people. This my wife and son never knew, for they deemed me only one who had led a desperate life in the mines. But my wife can give you, Jennie, the papers that will prove who you are, and enable you to claim your name and the fortune that is yours. Now go your way, for the shots will bring Indian scouts here, and you may both be killed. See, I am getting generous, and losing my feeling of revenge with death's grip upon me."

"But I can take you along, and——"

"No, place your hand here over my heart and you will see that my wound is fatal, for I am slowly bleeding to death. Now leave me, Captain Carey, you and this girl, for her presence haunts me."

"I dislike to leave a dying man——"

"Hark! don't you hear the Sioux coming? They will care for me, and I will tell them that the Red Hatchet attacked me, I killed him, and the girl escaped—go! or it will be too late!"

This Captain Carey fully realized, and, springing upon the horse of the dying renegade, he seized the rein of Jennie's horse and dashed away just as a score of dark forms were visible in the moonlight coming along at a run.