st came out at his back.
He fell dead almost without a groan.

Cheenbuk did not stop to finish the work by stabbing or scalping, but he
kneeled beside the wounded girl and gently raised her.

"Rinka," he said, softly, while he undid her jacket and sought for the
wound, "is it bad? Has he killed you?"

"I feel that I am dying. There is something here." She laid her hand
upon her side, from a small wound in which blood was issuing freely.

The heart of the man was at once torn by tender pity and bitter
indignation, when he thought of the gentle nature of the poor creature
who had been thus laid low, and of the savage cruelty of the Indian who
had done it--feelings which were not a little complicated by the
reflection that the war-spirit--that is, the desire to kill for mere
self-glorification--among some of his own people had probably been the
cause of it all.

"It is useless. I am dying," gasped the girl, drawing her bloody hand
across her forehead. "But don't leave me to fall into the hands of
these men. Take me home and let me die beside my mother."

She was yet speaking when old Uleeta and her companions came forward.
Seeing that no other Indian appeared, and that the one who had shot
Rinka was dead, they had quelled their alarm and come to see what had
occurred. Cheenbuk, after stanching the flow of blood, availed himself
of their aid to carry the wounded girl to the oomiak more comfortably
than could have been possible if he had been obliged to carry her in his
own strong arms.

With much care they placed her in the bottom of the boat, then the women
got in, and Cheenbuk was about to follow, when the report of a gun was
heard, and a bullet whizzed close past old Uleeta's head--so close,
indeed, that it cut off some of her grey hair. But the old creature was
by no means frightened.

"Quick, jump in!" she cried, beginning to push off with her paddle.

Cheenbuk was on the point of accepting the invitation, but a thought
intervened--and thought is swifter than the lightning-flash. He knew
from slight, but sufficient, experience that the spouters could send
only one messenger of death at a time, and that before another could be
spouted, some sort of manipulation which took time was needful. If the
Indian should get the manipulation over before the oomiak was out of
range, any of the women, as well as himself, might be killed.

"No," he cried, giving the boat a mighty shove that sent it out to sea
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