.

The man pursued by a foe looks about him quickly for that weapon
nearest to his own hand. The dread of steel drove Juan to bethink
himself of a weapon. He saw it at his feet, and again he roared like
an angry bull, his courage and his purpose alike unchanged. He stooped
and clutched the broken war axe, grasping the stone head in the palm of
his great hand, the jagged and ironlike shaft projecting from between
his ringers like the blade of a dagger. With the leap of a wild beast
he sprang again upon his foe. White Calf half turned, but the left
hand of the giant caught him and held him up against the fatal stroke.
The sharp shaft of wood struck the Indian in the side above the hip,
quartering through till the stone head sunk against the flesh with a
fearful sound. With a scream the victim straightened and fell forward.
The horrid spectacle was over.

CHAPTER XII

WHAT THE HAND HAD TO DO

In this wide, new world of the West there were but few artificial
needs, and the differentiation of industries was alike impossible and
undesired. Each man was his own cook, his own tailor, his own mechanic
in the simple ways demanded by the surroundings about him. Each man
was as good as his neighbour, for his neighbour as well as himself
perforce practised a half-dozen crafts and suffered therefrom neither
in his own esteem nor that of those about him. The specialists of
trade, of artisanship, of art, were not yet demanded in this
environment where each man in truth "took care of himself," and had
small dependence upon others.

In all the arts of making one's self comfortable in a womanless and
hence a homeless land both Franklin and Battersleigh, experienced
campaigners as they were, found themselves much aided by the counsel of
Curly, the self-reliant native of the soil who was Franklin's first
acquaintance in that land. It was Curly who helped them with their
houses and in their household supplies. It was he who told them now
and then of a new region where the crop of bones was not yet fully
gathered. It was he who showed them how to care for the little number
of animals which they began to gather about them; and who, in short,
gave to them full knowledge of the best ways of exacting a subsistence
from the land which they had invaded.

One morning Franklin, thinking to have an additional buffalo robe for
the coming winter, and knowing no manner in which he could get the hide
tanned except through his own