have died a
thousand deaths since that sun went down."

"You were conscious--all night long?"

"Conscious? Yes, and unhurt, yet prisoned helpless beneath those two
logs yonder, saved only by that over-turned bench. Elsie, poor thing,
never knew how death came, it was so swift, but I lay there, within a
foot of her body unscratched. I could think only of you, Steven, but
with never a dream that you lived. There were groans at first and
cries. Some Indians crept in through the door and dragged out a few
who lived. But with the coming of darkness all sounds ceased and such
silence was even more dreadful than the calls, for help. Oh, I cannot
tell you," and she clung to me, her voice breaking. "I--I dared not
move for hours, and then, when I did try, found I could not; that I was
held fast. Only for a knife in the hand of a dead savage, which I
managed to secure, I could never have freed myself. And oh, the
unspeakable horror of creeping in the darkness among those bodies. I
knew where the fireplace must be; that there might be live coals there
still. I had to have light; I had to know if you were dead."

"Don't think about it any more, dear heart," I urged. "Yes, we can go
now--nothing else holds us here."

We crept out through the door, underneath a mass of debris, into the
gray of the dawn. How sweet the air, how like a benediction the song
of birds. Neither of us looked back, and I held her close against me
as we moved onward, past the big tree, and down the long slope. It was
a wondrous view of peace and beauty, the broad green valley, with the
silver thread of water shining in its center--the valley of the Bureau.
We followed the faint trail, which wound in and out among small copses
of trees; the sun began to brighten the far east and her hand stole
into mine. The light was upon her face, and gave me a glimpse of the
sadness of her eyes. Beyond a little grove we found some horses
browsing in the deep grass; they were those that had brought us from
Yellow Banks, and whinnied a greeting as we drew near. Two of them
were fit to ride and the others followed, limping along behind.

A half mile up the valley we came to a beaten trail, running straight
across from bluff to bluff, and disappearing into the prairie beyond,
heading directly toward the sunrise. We stopped and looked back for
the first time. There on the side of the slope, under the shade of the
big tree, stood the cabin. Only for the