ent, resting immobile as statues, the sunset shining between the
legs of their ponies. The men spoke together, their heads turning from
the trio below to one another. David gripped the hand he held and
leaned forward to ask Leff for his knife.

"Don't be frightened," he said to Susan. "It's all right."

"I'm not frightened," she answered quietly.

"Your knife," he said to Leff and then stopped, staring. Leff very
slowly, step pressing stealthily behind step, was creeping backward up
the slope. His face was chalk white, his eyes fixed on the Indians.
In his hand he held his rifle ready, and the long knife gleamed in his
belt. For a moment David had no voice wherewith to arrest him, but
Susan had.

"Where are you going?" she said loudly.

It stopped him like a blow. His terrified eyes shifted to her face.

"I wasn't going," he faltered.

"Come back," she said. "You have the rifle and the knife."

He wavered, his loosened lips shaking.

"Back here to us," she commanded, "and give David the rifle."

He crept downward to them, his glance always on the Indians. They had
begun to move forward, leaving the squaws on the ridge. Their approach
was prowlingly sinister, the ponies stepping gingerly down the slope,
the snapping of twigs beneath their hoofs clear in the waiting silence.
As they dipped below the blazing sunset the rider's figures developed
in detail, their bodies bare and bronzed in the subdued light. Each
face, held high on a craning neck, was daubed with vermilion, the high
crest of hair bristling across the shaven crowns. Grimly impassive
they came nearer, not speaking nor moving their eyes from the three
whites. One of them, a young man, naked save for a breech clout and
moccasins, was in the lead. As he approached David saw that his
eyelids were painted scarlet and that a spot of silver on his breast
was a medal hanging from a leathern thong.

At the bottom of the slope they reined up, standing in a group, with
lifted heads staring. The trio opposite stared as fixedly. Behind
Susan's back Leff had passed David the rifle. He held it in one hand,
Susan by the other. He was conscious of her rigidity and also of her
fearlessness. The hand he held was firm. Once, breathing a phrase of
encouragement, he met her eyes, steady and unafraid. All his own fear
had passed. The sense of danger was thrillingly acute, but he felt it
only in its relation to her. Dropping her hand he stepped a pa