fered.
I've repented.... All I ask of God is to take you safely home to Allison
Lee--the father whom you have never known."

The night hour before dawn grew colder and blacker. A great silence
seemed wedged down between the ebony hills. The stars were wan. No cry
of wolf or moan of wind disturbed the stillness. And the stars grew
warmer. The black east changed and paled. Dawn was at hand. An opaque
and obscure grayness filled the world; all had changed, except that
strange, oppressive, and vast silence of the wild.

That silence was broken by the screeching, blood-curdling yell of the
Sioux.

At times these bloody savages attacked without warning and in the
silence of the grave; again they sent out their war-cries, chilling the
hearts of the bravest. Perhaps that warning yell was given only when
doom was certain.

Horn realized the dread omen and accepted it. He called the fugitives
to him and, choosing the best-protected spot among the rocks and wagons,
put the women in the center.

"Now, men--if it's the last for us--let it be fight! Mebbe we can hold
out till the troops come."

Then in the gray gloom of dawn he took a shovel; prying up a piece of
sod, he laid it aside and began to dig. And while he dug he listened
for another war-screech and gazed often and intently into the gloom. But
there was no sound and nothing to see. When he had dug a hole several
feet deep he carried an armful of heavy leather bags and deposited
them in it. Then he went back to the wagon for another armful. The men,
gray-faced as the gloom, watched him fill up the hole, carefully replace
the sod, and stamp it down.

He stood for an instant gazing down, as if he had buried the best of his
life. Then he laughed grim and hard.

"There's my gold! If any man wins through this he can have it!"

Bill Horn divined that he would never live to touch his treasure again.
He who had slaved for gold and had risked all for it cared no more
what might become of it. Gripping his rifle, he turned to await the
inevitable.

Moments of awful suspense passed. Nothing but the fitful beating of
hearts came to the ears of the fugitives--ears that strained to the
stealthy approach of the red foe--ears that throbbed prayerfully for
the tramp of the troopers' horses. But only silence ensued, a horrible
silence, more nerve-racking than the clash of swift, sure death.

Then out of the gray gloom burst jets of red flame; rifles cracked, and
the air suddenly