rs an opportunity, greatly coveted and relished by their
fiendish natures, to beat him cruelly during his flight. This sort of
thing was to the Indians, indeed, an exquisite amusement, as
fascinating to them as the theater is to more enlightened people. No
sooner was it agreed upon that the entertainment should again be
undertaken than all the younger men began to scurry around getting
everything ready for it. Their faces glowed with a droll cruelty
strange to see, and they further expressed their lively expectations by
playful yet curiously solemn antics.

The preparations were simple and quickly made. Each man armed himself
with a stick three feet long and about three-quarters of an inch in
diameter. Rough weapons they were, cut from boughs of scrub-oak, knotty
and tough as horn. Long-Hair unbound Beverley and stripped his clothes
from his body down to the waist. Then the lines formed, the Indians in
each row standing about as far apart as the width of the space in which
the prisoner was to run. This arrangement gave them free use of their
sticks and plenty of room for full swing of their lithe bodies.

In removing Beverley's clothes Long-Hair found Alice's locket hanging
over the young man's heart. He tore it rudely off and grunted, glaring
viciously, first at it, then at Beverley. He seemed to be mightily
wrought upon.

"White man damn thief," he growled deep in his throat; "stole from
little girl!"

He put the locket in his pouch and resumed his stupidly indifferent
expression.

When everything was ready for the delightful entertainment to begin,
Long-Hair waved his tomahawk three times over Beverley's head, and
pointing down between the waiting lines said:

"Ugh, run!"

But Beverley did not budge. He was standing erect, with his arms,
deeply creased where the thongs had sunk, folded across his breast. A
rush of thoughts and feelings had taken tumultuous possession of him
and he could not move or decide what to do. A mad desire to escape
arose in his heart the moment that he saw Long-Hair take the locket. It
was as if Alice had cried to him and bidden him make a dash for liberty.

"Ugh, run!"

The order was accompanied with a push of such violence from Long-Hair's
left elbow that Beverley plunged and fell, for his limbs, after their
long and painful confinement in the raw-hide bonds, were stiff and
almost useless. Long-Hair in no gentle voice bade him get up. The shock
of falling seemed to awaken his do