means the hangman, if we take you alive. But we
are willing to forget that if you will accept the offer I made you
today. What do you say?"

Alan was stunned. Speech failed him as he realized the monstrous
assurance with which Graham and Rossland were playing their game. And
when he made no answer Rossland continued to drive home his arguments,
believing that at last Alan was at the point of surrender.

Up in the dark attic the voices had come like ghost-land whispers to old
Sokwenna. He lay huddled at the window, and the chill of death was
creeping over him. But the voices roused him. They were not strange
voices, but voices which came up out of a past of many years ago,
calling upon him, urging him, persisting in his ears with cries of
vengeance and of triumph, the call of familiar names, a moaning of
women, a sobbing of children. Shadowy hands helped him, and a last time
he raised himself to the window, and his eyes were filled with the glare
of the burning cabin. He struggled to lift his rifle, and behind him he
heard the exultation of his people as he rested it over the sill and
with gasping breath leveled it at something which moved between him and
the blazing light of that wonderful sun which was the burning cabin. And
then, slowly and with difficulty, he pressed the trigger, and Sokwenna's
last shot sped on its mission.

At the sound of the shot Alan looked through the window. For a moment
Rossland stood motionless. Then the pole in his hands wavered, drooped,
and fell to the earth, and Rossland sank down after it making no sound,
and lay a dark and huddled blot on the ground.

The appalling swiftness and ease with which Rossland had passed from
life into death shocked every nerve in Alan's body. Horror for a brief
space stupefied him, and he continued to stare at the dark and
motionless blot, forgetful of his own danger, while a grim and terrible
silence followed the shot. And then what seemed to be a single cry broke
that silence, though it was made up of many men's voices. Deadly and
thrilling, it was a message that set Alan into action. Rossland had been
killed under a flag of truce, and even the men under Graham had
something like respect for that symbol. He could expect no
mercy--nothing now but the most terrible of vengeance at their hands,
and as he dodged back from the window he cursed Sokwenna under his
breath, even as he felt the relief of knowing he was not dead.

Before a shot had been fired fr