If we quarrel with them, we have to vamose; if
we fight, we are wiped out. Further, we've struck pay, and, by God! I,
for one, am going to stick by it!"

"Ditto here," supplemented Wertz.

Hitchcock turned impatiently to Sigmund, who was softly singing,--

"In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,
I shall stay no more away."

"Well, it's this way, Hitchcock," he finally said, "I'm in the same boat
with the rest. If three-score bucks have made up their mind to kill the
girl, why, we can't help it. One rush, and we'd be wiped off the
landscape. And what good'd that be? They'd still have the girl. There's
no use in going against the customs of a people except you're in force."

"But we are in force!" Hitchcock broke in. "Four whites are a match for
a hundred times as many reds. And think of the girl!"

Sigmund stroked the dog meditatively. "But I do think of the girl. And
her eyes are blue like summer skies, and laughing like summer seas, and
her hair is yellow, like mine, and braided in ropes the size of a big
man's arms. She's waiting for me, out there, in a better land. And
she's waited long, and now my pile's in sight I'm not going to throw it
away."

"And shamed I would be to look into the girl's blue eyes and remember the
black ones of the girl whose blood was on my hands," Hitchcock sneered;
for he was born to honor and championship, and to do the thing for the
thing's sake, nor stop to weigh or measure.

Sigmund shook his head. "You can't make me mad, Hitchcock, nor do mad
things because of your madness. It's a cold business proposition and a
question of facts. I didn't come to this country for my health, and,
further, it's impossible for us to raise a hand. If it is so, it is too
bad for the girl, that's all. It's a way of her people, and it just
happens we're on the spot this one time. They've done the same for a
thousand-thousand years, and they're going to do it now, and they'll go
on doing it for all time to come. Besides, they're not our kind. Nor's
the girl. No, I take my stand with Wertz and Hawes, and--"

But the dogs snarled and drew in, and he broke off, listening to the
crunch-crunch of many snowshoes. Indian after Indian stalked into the
firelight, tall and grim, fur-clad and silent, their shadows dancing
grotesquely on the snow. One, the witch doctor, spoke gutturally to
Sipsu. His face was daubed with savage paint blotches, and over his
shoulders was