razed with savage blood-lust and hours of
remorseless torture of their victims, for the moment that sweet vision
of womanly purity held them motionless, as if indeed the figure of the
Christ she uplifted before their faces had taught them abhorrence of
their crimes.

But it was not for long. To hundreds of those present she was merely
an unknown white woman; while even to those who knew her best, the
Pottawattomies, she appeared only as one who came to balk them of their
revenge. They may have held her person inviolate amid their lodges,
and even have countenanced her strange teaching; but now she had
ventured too far in attempting thus to stand between them and their
victim. They held back a single moment, halted by her fearlessness,
rendered cowardly by vague superstitions regarding her religious power;
but after the first breathless pause of dumb astonishment and
irresolution, voice after voice arose in hoarse cries of rage and
shouts of disapproval. There was a surging forward of the straining
red line, while in their front howled and gesticulated the hideous old
medicine-man, his painted face distorted by passion, eager to grasp
this auspicious moment to cast down forever one who had sought to end
his superstitious rule among the tribe. I marked how she drew back as
they advanced, retreating step by step,--not, indeed, as if she feared
them, but rather as if some definite purpose led her movement. Her
eyes never wavered, her hand still uplifted the gleaming cross, as she
retreated slowly, until she stood directly before De Croix, where he
hung helplessly staring at her with an expression of fear in his face
strangely at variance with his late show of desperate courage.

"Back!" she cried again, but now in a deeper and fuller voice that
sounded like a clear-toned bell above the uproar. "I tell you I will
kill this man with my own hand before I permit you to put further
torture upon him!"

An instant only did this threat halt the gathering rush. Some one
voiced an Indian insult, and there came a fierce surging forward,
although no warrior among them seemed eager to lead in the attack. I
saw the woman lift her hand, and caught the glimmer of a steel blade;
and even as I sprang erect, partially flinging aside the obstructing
flap of the lodge, an Indian, stalking silently forth from the shadows,
faced the mob, standing motionless within a foot of the desperate girl,
and with his back toward her. One glance