r, her commander, her repudiator.
Slowly she turned the moccasin over in her hand. The white bone fell
first, the red for a moment hanging in the soft folds of the buckskin.
She shook it out. It fell with its face nearly parallel to the ground
and alighted not more than a foot from the line, rebounding scarce more
than an inch or so. Low exclamations arose from all around the thickened
circle.

"As I said, my friend," cried Sir Arthur, "I have won! The throw is
passing close for you."

Teganisoris again caught Mary Connynge by the shoulder, and dragged her
a step or so farther along the line, the two dice being left on the
ground as they had fallen. Once more, her hand arose, once more it
turned, once more the dice were cast.

The goddess of fortune still stood faithful to this bold young man who
had so often confidently assumed her friendship. His life, later to be
so intimately concerned with this same new savage country, was to be
preserved for an ultimate opportunity.

The white and the red bone fell together from the moccasin. Had it been
the white that counted, Sir Arthur had been saved, for the white bone
lay actually upon the line. The red fell almost as close, but alighted
on its end. As though impelled by some spirit of evil, it dropped upon
some little pebble or hard bit of earth, bounded into the air, fell, and
rolled quite away from the mark!

Even on that crowd of cruel savages there came a silence. Of the whites,
one scarce dared look at the other. Slowly the faces of Pembroke and Law
turned one toward the other.

"Would God I could shake you by the hand," said Pembroke. "Good by."

"As for you, dogs and worse than dogs," he cried, turning toward the red
faces about him, "mark you! where I stand the feet of the white man
shall stand forever, and crush your faces into the dirt!"

Whether or not the Iroquois understood his defiance could not be
determined. With a wild shout they pressed upon him. Borne struggling
and stumbling by the impulse of a dozen hands, Pembroke half walked and
half was carried over the distance between the village and the brink of
the chasm of Niagara.

Until then it had not been apparent what was to be the nature of his
fate, but when he looked upon the sliding floor of waters below him, and
heard beyond the thunderous voices of the cataract, Pembroke knew what
was to be his final portion.

There was, at some distance above the great falls, a spot where descent
was poss