dry branches. Taunting
laughter, cries of savage triumph, the shaking of rattles, and the
furious beating of two great drums combined to make a clamor deafening
me to stupor. Above the horizon was the angry reddening of the heavens
and the white mist curling up like smoke.

I sat down beside Diccon on the log. I did not speak to him, nor he to
me; there seemed no need of speech. In the [v]pandemonium to which the
world had narrowed, the one familiar, matter-of-course thing was that he
and I were to die together.

The stakes were in the ground and painted red, the wood was properly
fixed. The Indian woman who held the torch that was to light the pile
ran past us, whirling the wood around her head to make it blaze more
fiercely. As she went by she lowered the brand and slowly dragged it
across my wrists. The beating of the drums suddenly ceased, and the loud
voices died away.

Seeing that they were coming for us, Diccon and I rose to await them.
When they were nearly upon us, I turned to him and held out my hand.

He made no motion to take it. Instead, he stood with fixed eyes looking
past me and slightly upward. A sudden pallor had overspread the bronze
of his face.

"There's a verse somewhere," he said in a quiet voice,--"it's in the
Bible, I think--I heard it once long ago: 'I will look unto the hills
from whence cometh my help.' Look, sir!"

I turned and followed with my eyes the pointing of his finger. In front
of us the bank rose steeply, bare to the summit,--no trees, only the red
earth, with here and there a low growth of leafless bushes. Behind it
was the eastern sky. Upon the crest, against the sunrise, stood the
figure of a man--an Indian. From one shoulder hung an otterskin, and a
great bow was in his hand. His limbs were bare, and as he stood
motionless, bathed in the rosy light, he looked like some bronze god,
perfect from the beaded moccasins to the calm, uneager face below the
feathered head-dress. He had but just risen above the brow of the hill;
the Indians in the hollow saw him not.

While Diccon and I stared, our tormentors were upon us. They came a
dozen or more at once, and we had no weapons. Two hung on my arms, while
a third laid hold of my doublet to rend it from me. An arrow whistled
over our heads and stuck into a tree behind us. The hands that clutched
me dropped, and with a yell the busy throng turned their faces in the
direction whence had come the arrow.

The Indian who had sent th