the children playing about them, when the Indians had come up and
with a single volley killed them all except the child we had heard
crying. They had swooped down upon their victims, torn the scalps from
their heads, looted the house, and set fire to it. We dragged out the
body of the woman which had been thrown within, in the hope that a spark
of life might yet remain, but she was quite dead. Beneath the warrior
Spiltdorph had shot we found the child. It was a boy of some six or seven
years, and so covered with blood that it seemed it must be dead. But we
stripped it and washed it in the brook, and found no wounds upon it
except in the head, where it had been struck with a hatchet before its
scalp had been stripped off. The cold water brought it back to life and
it began to cry again, whereat Spiltdorph took off his coat and wrapped
it tenderly about it.

We washed the blood from the faces of the women and stood for a long time
looking down at them. They were both comely, the younger just at the dawn
of womanhood. They must have been talking merrily together, for their
faces were smiling as they had been in life.

As I stood looking so, I was startled by a kind of dry sobbing at my
elbow, and turned with a jerk to find a man standing there. He was
leaning on his rifle, gazing down at the dead, with no sound but the
choking in his throat. A brace of turkeys over his shoulder showed that
he had been hunting. In an instant I understood. It was the husband and
father come home. He did not move as I looked at him nor raise his eyes,
but stood transfixed under his agony. I glanced across at Spiltdorph, and
saw that his eyes were wet and his lips quivering. I did not venture to
speak, but my friend, who was ever more tactful than I, moved to the
man's side and placed his hand gently on his shoulder.

"They died an easy death," he said softly. "See, they are still smiling.
They had no fear, no agony. They were dead before they knew that danger
threatened. Let us thank God that they suffered no worse."

The man breathed a long sigh and his strength seemed to go suddenly from
him, for he dropped his rifle and fell upon his knees.

"This was my wife," he whispered. "This was my sister. These were my
children. What is there left on earth for me?"

I no longer sought to control the working of my face, and the tears were
streaming down Spiltdorph's cheeks. Great, gentle, manly heart, how I
loved you!

"Yes, there is somethin