e before."

"I believe," said I, blurring the words, for my tongue was getting
unmanageable, "they're making ready now."

She exclaimed and struggled and sat up, and we both gazed. Out there the
Sioux, in that world of their own, had aroused to energy. I fancied that
they had palled of the inaction. At any rate they were upon their feet,
several were upon their horses, others mounted hastily, squad joined squad
as though by summons, and here came their outpost scout, galloping in, his
blanket streaming from one hand like a banner of an Islam prophet.

They delayed an instant, gesticulating.

"It will be soon," she whispered, touching my arm. "When they are
half-way, don't fail. I trust you. Will you kiss me? That is only the
once."

I kissed her; dry cracked lips met dry cracked lips. She laid herself down
and closed her eyes, and smiled.

"I'm all right," she said. "And tired. I've worked so hard, for only this.
You mustn't look."

"And you must wait for me, somewhere," I entreated. "Just a moment."

"Of course," she sighed.

The Sioux charged, shrieking, hammering, lashing, all of one purpose:
that, us; she, I; my life, her body; and quickly kneeling beside her (I
was cool and firm and collected) I felt her hand guide the revolver
barrel. But I did not look. She had forbidden, and I kept my eyes upon
them, until they were half-way, and in exultation I pulled the trigger, my
hand already tensed to snatch and cock and deliver myself under their very
grasp. That was a sweetness.

The hammer clicked. There had been no jar, no report. The hammer had only
clicked, I tell you, shocking me to the core. A missed cartridge? An empty
chamber? Which? No matter. I should achieve for her, first; then, myself.
I heard her gasp, they were very near, how they shouted, how the bullets
and arrows spatted and hissed, and I had convulsively cocked the gun, she
had clutched it--when looking through them, agonized and blinded as I
was--looking through them as if they were phantasms I sensed another sound
and with sight sharpened I saw.

Then I wrested the revolver from her. I fired pointblank, I fired again
(the Colt's did not fail); they swept by, hooting, jostling; they thudded
on; and rising I screeched and waved, as bizarre, no doubt, as any
animated scarecrow.

It had been a trumpet note, and a cavalry guidon and a rank of bobbing
figures had come galloping, galloping over an imperceptible swell.

She cried to me, from