flashed in the air and darted down, again and again, upon
the body of the helpless man. There was a convulsive struggle, but no
outcry, and the next moment the body hung limp and inert in its cords.
Elijah would himself have fallen, half-fainting, against a tree, but,
by a revulsion of feeling, came the quick revelation that the desperate
girl had rightly solved the problem! She had done what he ought to have
done--and his loyalty and manhood were preserved. That conviction
and the courage to act upon it--to have called the sleeping braves
to witness his sacrifice--would have saved him, but it was ordered
otherwise.

As the girl rapidly passed him he threw out his hand and seized her
wrist. "Who did you do this for?" he demanded.

"For you," she said, stupidly.

"And why?"

"Because you no kill him--you love his squaw."

"HIS squaw!" He staggered back. A terrible suspicion flashed upon him.
He dashed Wachita aside and ran to the tree. It was the body of the
Indian agent! Aboriginal justice had been satisfied. The warriors
had not caught the MURDERER, but, true to their idea of vicarious
retribution, had determined upon the expiatory sacrifice of a life as
valuable and innocent as the one they had lost.

*****

"So the Gov'rment hev at last woke up and wiped out them cussed Digger
Minyos," said Snapshot Harry, as he laid down the newspaper, in the
brand-new saloon of the brand-new town of Redwood. "I see they've
stampeded both banks of the Minyo River, and sent off a lot to the
reservation. I reckon the soldiers at Fort Cass got sick o' sentiment
after those hounds killed the Injun agent, and are beginning to agree
with us that the only 'good Injun' is a dead one."

"And it turns out that that wonderful chief, that them two packers used
to rave about, woz about as big a devil ez any, and tried to run off
with the agent's wife, only the warriors killed her. I'd like to know
what become of him. Some says he was killed, others allow that he got
away. I've heerd tell that he was originally some kind of Methodist
preacher!--a kind o' saint that got a sort o' spiritooal holt on the old
squaws and children."

"Why don't you ask old Skeesicks? I see he's back here ag'in--and
grubbin' along at a dollar a day on tailin's. He's been somewhere up
north, they say."

"What, Skeesicks? that shiftless, o'n'ry cuss! You bet he wusn't
anywhere where there was danger of fighting. Why, you might as well hev
suspected HIM of be