y been retained by the Indians as a novel trophy, and was
as evidently to be connected in some manner with his approaching fate.
The tub was carried beyond his sight, and a few minutes later he was
led to the end of a long, narrow lane, bordered by two living walls of
human beings. Then he knew that he was to undergo the terrible ordeal
of the gantlet, which had been so often described to him that he felt
familiar with all its sickening details.

The entire population of the village was ranged in two parallel rows
facing each other, and all were armed with sticks, clubs, dog-whips or
some similar weapon with which to strike at the poor wretch who would
be forced to run for his life down the dreary lane.

As Bullen faced this ordeal he recalled how other men had acted under
similar circumstances. Some had been beaten to death ere completing
half the course; while others had been so fleet of foot as to escape
almost unhurt. One, he remembered, was a tall man of such strength and
agility that he snatched a club from the nearest Indian at the moment
of starting and brandished it with such effect as he ran that no one
dared strike him.

But the paymaster was neither tall, nor strong, nor agile. He was
short and stout. As for running, he had not done such a thing since he
was a child, nor even then that he could remember. Now it would
certainly kill him to run for even a short distance, while he would as
certainly be killed if he did not run. The little man was in despair;
it was so pitiful and mean a fate to be beaten to death with clubs like
a mad dog--oh! if he only were one, how he would scatter that throng of
howling savages. With this thought an inspiration came to him like a
ray of sunlight piercing the blackness of a dungeon. He felt among the
inner folds of his ragged blanket, withdrew a small object and thrust
it into his mouth. A second later the blanket was snatched from his
body leaving him clad only in a breech clout, and he was given a push
into the lane as a hint that his time for running had come.

A hush of expectancy fell upon the eager throng, and each grasped his
stick more firmly with the resolve to have at least one good cut at
that bald-headed white man as he ran or staggered past. The first one
on the right, who happened to be the Zebra, lifted a switch and struck
the paymaster a smart though not a cruel blow across the shoulders as
an intimation that the fun had begun.

The first one