w, swift, rustling,
creeping sound, like the slipping rattle of an infinite number of
tiny bits of moving gravel. Then it was a sound like the seeping of
wind-blown sand. Several hot bites occurred at once. And then with his
head twisted he saw a red stream of ants pour out of the mound and spill
over his quivering flesh.

In an instant he realized his position. He had been dropped
intentionally upon an ant-heap, which had sunk with his weight, wedging
him between the crusts. At the mercy of those terrible desert ants! A
frantic effort to roll out proved futile, as did another and another.
His violent muscular contractions infuriated the ants, and in an instant
he was writhing in pain so horrible and so unendurable that he nearly
fainted. But he was too strong to faint suddenly. A bath of vitriol,
a stripping of his skin and red embers of fire thrown upon raw flesh,
could not have equaled this. There was fury in the bites and poison in
the fangs of these ants. Was this an Indian's brutal trick or was it the
missionary's revenge? Shefford realized that it would kill him soon. He
sweat what seemed blood, although perhaps the blood came from the bites.
A strange, hollow, buzzing roar filled his ears, and it must have been
the pouring of the angry ants from their mound.

Then followed a time that was hell--worse than fire, for fire would
have given merciful death--agony under which his physical being began
spasmodically to jerk and retch--and his eyeballs turned and his breast
caved in.

A cry rang through the roar in his ears. "Bi Nai! Bi Nai!"

His fading sight seemed to shade round the dark face of Nas Ta Bega.

Then powerful hands dragged him from the mound, through the grass
and sage, rolled him over and over, and brushed his burning skin with
strong, swift sweep.

IX. IN THE DESERT CRUCIBLE

That hard experience was but the beginning of many cruel trials for John
Shefford.

He never knew who his assailants were, nor their motive other than
robbery; and they had gotten little, for they had not found the large
sum of money sewed in the lining of his coat. Joe Lake declared it was
Shadd's work, and the Mormon showed the stern nature that lay hidden
under his mild manner. Nas Ta Bega shook his head and would not tell
what he thought. But a somber fire burned in his eyes.

The three started with a heavily laden pack-train and went down the
mountain slope into West Canyon. The second day they were shot at