at in the intense blackness she had returned no
answer. There was a movement upon the bed; a huge hand closed roughly
about her arm. The Indian was firing again.

"Tell me, are you hurt?" rasped a voice in her ear. And her arm was
shaken almost fiercely.

"No!" she managed to gasp, struggling to free herself. "But oh, it's
all too, too horrible, too awful! There is a dead man in the other
room. He is one of LeFroy's Indians. One of _my_ Indians, and they
shot him!"

"I'm damned glad of it!" growled MacNair thickly, and Chloe leaped from
the bed. The coarse brutality of the man was inconceivable. In her
mingled emotion of rage and loathing, she hated this man with a fierce,
savage hatred that could kill. She knew now why men called him Brute
MacNair. The name fitted! These Indians had rushed from the security
of the fortlike storehouse upon the first intimation of danger to
protect the defenseless quartet in the cottage--the three women and the
wounded, helpless man. In the very doorway of the cottage one had been
killed--killed facing the enemy--the savage blood-thirsty horde who,
having learned of the plight of their oppressor, had taken the warpath
to venge their wrongs. Surely MacNair must know that this man had died
as much in the defense of him as of the women. And yet, when he
learned of the death of this man, he had said: "I am damned glad of it!"

How long Chloe stood there speechless, trembling, with her heart fairly
bursting with rage, she did not know. Time ceased to be. Suddenly she
realized that the room was no longer in intense darkness. Objects
appeared dim and indistinct: the bed with the wounded man, the contents
of the table strewn in confusion upon the floor, and the Indian
shooting from the window. Then the flare of flames met her eyes. The
walls of the storehouse stood out distinctly from its black background
of timber. Savage forms appeared in the clearing, gliding stealthily
from stump to stump.

The light grew brighter. She could hear now, mingled with the sharp
crack of the rifles, the dull roar of flames. The dormitories were
burning! This added to her consuming rage. Her eyes seemed fairly to
glow as she fixed them upon the pale face of MacNair, who had struggled
to a sitting posture. She took a step toward the bed. A dull red spot
showed on either cheek. A bullet ripped through the window and
splintered the dull gold frame of Tiger Elliston's portrait, but the