her--but I tore them apart and read,--"

The Indian who had come to them first now appeared again over the ridge,
and with him another. The second was accoutered lavishly with a girdle
of brilliant feathers, anklets of shell, and bracelets of silver, his
face barred by alternating streaks of vermilion and yellow, a lank braid
of his black hair hanging either side of his face, and on his head the
horns and painted skull of a buffalo. In one hand was a wand of red-dyed
wood with a beaded and quilled amulet at the end. The other down by his
side held something they did not at first notice.

The little man was growing weaker each moment, but still muttered as he
turned restlessly on the blanket.

"'And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them
likewise.'" His quick ear detecting the light step of the approaching
Indians, he sat up and grasped Follett's arm.

"What do they want? Let no one come now. Death is here and I am going
out to meet it--I am glad to go--so tired!"

Follett, looking up at the two Indians now standing awkwardly by them,
said, in a low tone, with a wave of his free arm:

"_Vamose_!"

"Big medicine!" grunted the Indian who had first come to them, pointing
to his companion. In an instant this other was before the sick man,
chanting and making passes with his wand.

Then, before Follett could rise, the Indian's other hand came up, and
they saw, slowly waved before the staring eyes of the little man, a long
mass of yellow hair that writhed and ran in little gleaming waves as if
it lived. It was tied about the wrist of the Indian with strips of
scarlet flannel--tied below a broad silver bracelet that glittered from
the bronzed arm.

The face of the sick man had a moment before been tranquil, almost
smiling; but now his eyes followed the hair with something of
fascination in them. Then a shade of terror darkened the peaceful look,
like the shadow of a cloud hurried by the wind over a fair green garden.

But with its passing there came again into his eyes the light of sanity.
He gazed at the hair, breathless, still in wonder; and then very slowly
there grew over his face the look of an unearthly peace, so that they
who were by him deferred the putting aside of the Indian. With eyes wide
open, full of a calm they could not understand, he looked and smiled,
his wan face flushing again in that last time. Then, reaching suddenly
out, his long white fingers tangled themselves feebly in the