creaming chant of the wizard. Still the south
wind moaned about the lodges; and the dancers shouted the louder to
drown those ghost-cries of the dead. Faster and faster beat the drum.
Swifter and swifter darted the braves, hacking their own flesh in a
frenzy of fear till their shrieks out-screamed the wind.

Then the spirits were deemed appeased.

The mad orgy of horrors was over, but the dancers were too exhausted
for the torture of prisoners. The older men came to the lodge where we
were guarded and Godefroy again began his importunings.

Setting Jack Battle aside, they bade the trader and me come out.

"Better one be tortured than three," heartlessly muttered Godefroy to
Jack. "Now they'll set us free for fear of M. Radisson, and we'll come
back for you."

But Godefroy had miscalculated the effects of his threats. At the door
stood a score of warriors who had not been to the massacre. If we
hoped to escape torture the wizard bade us follow these men. They led
us away with a sinister silence. When we reached the crest of the
hill, half-way between the lodges and the massacre, Godefroy took
alarm. This was not the direction of our fort. The trader shouted out
that M. Radisson would punish them well if they did us harm. At that
one of the taciturn fellows turned. They would take care to do us no
harm, he said, with an evil laugh. On the ridge of the hill they
paused, as if seeking a mark. Two spindly wind-stripped trees stood
straight as mast-poles above the snow. The leader went forward to
examine the bark for Indian signal, motioning Godefroy and me closer as
he examined the trees.

With the whistle of a whip-lash through air the thongs were about us,
round and round ankle, neck, and arms, binding us fast. Godefroy
shouted out a blasphemous oath and struggled till the deer sinew cut
his buckskin. I had only succeeded in wheeling to face our treacherous
tormentors when the strands tightened. In the struggle the trader had
somehow got his face to the bark. The coils circled round him. The
thongs drew close. The Indians stood back. They had done what they
came to do. They would not harm us, they taunted, pointing to the
frost-silvered valley, where lay the dead of their morning crime.

Then with harsh gibes, the warriors ran down the hillside, leaving us
bound.

CHAPTER XVIII

FACING THE END

Below the hill on one side flickered the moving torches of the
hostiles. On the other s