hey put the powder and
bullets in their rifles. But Henry was near enough to Shif'less Sol and
Silent Tom to hear them exchange a few words.

"How far away is that savage?" asked Shif'less Sol.

"Hundred and eighty yards," said Tom Ross.

"Well, you take him in the head, and I'll take him in the body."

Henry saw the two rifle barrels go up and two flashes of flame leap from
the muzzles. The Indian fell forward and lay still. They went up to him,
and found that he was shot through the head and also through the body.

"We may miss once, but we don't twice," said Tom Ross.

The human mind can be influenced so powerfully by events that the three
felt no compunction at all at the shooting of this fleeing Indian. It
was but a trifle compared with what they had seen the day and night
before.

"We'd better take the weapons an' ammunition o' both uv 'em," said Sol.
"They may be needed, an' some o' the women in that crowd kin shoot."

They gathered up the arms, powder, and ball, and waited a little to see
whether the shots had been heard by any other Indians, but there was
no indication of the presence of more warriors, and the rejoined the
fugitives. Long Jim had dropped back to the end of the line, and when he
saw that his comrades carried two extra rifles, he understood.

"They didn't give no alarm, did they?" he asked in a tone so low that
none of the fugitives could hear.

"They didn't have any chance," replied Henry. "We've brought away all
their weapons and ammunition, but just say to the women that we found
them in an abandoned house."

The rifles and the other arms were given to the boldest and most
stalwart of the women, and they promised to use them if the need came.
Meanwhile the flight went on, and the farther it went the sadder it
became. Children became exhausted, and had to be carried by people so
tired that they could scarcely walk themselves. There was nobody in the
line who had not lost some beloved one on that fatal river bank, killed
in battle, or tortured to death. As they slowly ascended the green slope
of the mountain that inclosed a side of the valley, they looked back
upon ruin and desolation. The whole black tragedy was being consummated.
They could see the houses in flames, and they knew that the Indian war
parties were killing and scalping everywhere. They knew, too, that other
bodies of fugitives, as stricken as their own, were fleeing into the
mountains, they scarcely knew whither.

A