a brave effort
to keep back the tears:

"If I had a gun I'd shoot some Indians;--I'd shoot you, too--you killed
him. When I grow up to be a man, I'll have a gun and come here--"

He had the child in his arms, and called to the boy:

"Come, fast now! Go as near as you can to where you left her."

They ran forward through the gray smoke, stepping over and around bodies
as they went. When they reached the first of the women he would have
stopped to search, but the boy led him on, pointing. And then, half-way
up the line, a little to the right of the road, at the edge of the
cedars, his eye caught the glimpse of a great mass of yellow hair on the
ground. She seemed to have been only wounded, for, as he looked, she was
up on her knees striving to stand.

He ran faster, leaving the boy behind now, but while he was still far
off, he saw an Indian, knife in hand, run to her and strike her down.
Then before he had divined the intent, the savage had gathered the long
hair into his left hand, made a swift circling of the knife with his
right,--and the thing was done before his eyes. He screamed in terror as
he ran, and now he was near enough to be heard. The Indian at his cry
arose and for one long second shook, almost in his face as he came
running up, the long, shining, yellow hair with the gory patch at the
end. Before his staring eyes, the hair was twisting, writhing, and
undulating,--like a golden flame licking the bronzed arm that held it.
And then, as he reached the spot, the Indian, with a long yell of
delight and a final flourish of his trophy, ran off to other prizes.

He stood a moment, breathless and faint, looking with fearful eyes down
at the little, limp, still figure at his feet. One slender, bare arm was
flung out as if she had grasped at the whole big earth in her last
agony.

The spell of fear was broken by the boy, who came trotting up. He had
given way to his tears now, and was crying loudly from fright. Joel made
him take the little girl and sit under a cedar out of sight of the spot.

CHAPTER XVIII.

_In the Dark of the Aftermath_

He was never able to recall the events of that day, or of the months
following, in anything like their proper sequence. The effort to do so
brought a pain shooting through his head. Up to the moment when the
yellow hair had waved in his face, everything had kept a ghastly
distinctness. He remembered each instant and each emotion. After that
all was dark confus