off.

Flying Cloud reeled back, gazed a moment at Plummer, and then drew a
knife.

"It was when there was war between us, and I will not swing at the end
of the white man's rope," he said.

So speaking, he plunged the blade into his own heart and fell dead,
almost at the feet of the woman whose kin he had slain.

"Whatever the red scoundrel was," said Hobart, later, "I shall always
use the old text for him, and say that nothing in this life became him
like the leaving of it."

But there were no such feelings in the heart of Sylvia Morgan. When
"King" Plummer sprang upon Flying Cloud, Harley turned involuntarily to
Sylvia, and he saw the pallor replaced by a sudden flush; then, when the
chief slew himself with his own knife, the flush passed, and whiter than
ever she sank down gently. But Harley caught her in his arms before she
fell, and in a moment or two she revived. It seemed to be her first
thought that she was held by him, and she struggled a little.

"Let me go," she said; "I can stand. I assure you I can. It was just a
passing weakness."

But Harley wished to make certain that it was not more than that before
he released her, and the friendly darkness and the interest of the crowd
centred on Flying Cloud aided him. A minute later Mrs. Grayson and the
wife of a local political leader, Mrs. Meadows, took her from him and
carried her to the hotel. Mrs. Grayson, who had heard the chief's chant,
understood the story, but Mrs. Meadows, who knew nothing of Sylvia's
relation to it, but who guessed something from the talk of the others,
was devoured by curiosity. However, she prevailed over it, for the time,
and was silent as she went with Sylvia back to the hotel, although she
made a vow which she kept--that she would find out the full truth in the
morning.

Harley lingered a little by the firelight and joined Hobart and the
crowd. The tragedy had cut deep into his thoughts--and he did not care
to talk, but the others had plenty to say.

"What a singular coincidence," said Tremaine, stroking his fine, white,
pointed mustache, of which he was very proud. "I call it very remarkable
that this savage should have told the story of that old tragedy the very
night when the only survivor of it was present."

"I do not call it remarkable at all," said Hobart. "It is not even a
coincidence in the usual meaning of the word. It came about naturally,
each chapter in the story being the logical sequence of the chapter tha