e warriors holding her while two others
extended her arms and fixed them to two stout limbs. What the fastenings
were Thurstane could guess from the fact that he saw blows given, and
heard the long shrill scream of a woman in uttermost agony. Then there was
more hammering around the sufferer's feet, and more shrill wailing. She
was spiked through the palms and the ankles to the tree. It was a
crucifixion.

"By ----!" groaned Thurstane, "I never will spare an Indian as long as I
live."

"Capm, I'm with you," said Texas Smith. "I seen my mother fixed like that.
I seen it from the bush whar I was a hidin'. I was a boy then. I've killed
every Injun I could sence."

Now the dance was resumed. The Apaches pranced about their victim to the
music of her screams. The movement quickened; at last they ran around the
tree in a maddened crowd; at every shriek they stamped, gestured, and
yelled demoniacally. Now and then one of them climbed the girl's body and
appeared to stuff something into her mouth. Then the lamentable outcries
sank to a gasping and sobbing which could only be imagined by the
spectators on the hill.

"Can't you hit some of them?" Thurstane asked Texas Smith.

"Better let 'em finish," muttered the borderer. "The gal can't be helped.
She's as good as dead, Capm."

After another rest came a fresh scene of horror. Several of the Apaches,
no doubt chiefs or leading braves, caught up their bows and renewed the
dance. Running in a circle at full speed about the tree, each one in turn
let fly an arrow at the victim, the object being to send the missile clear
through her.

"That's the wind-up," muttered Texas Smith. "It's my turn now."

He leaped from the wall to the ground, ran sixty or eighty yards down the
hill, halted, aimed, and fired. One of the warriors, a fellow in a red
shirt who had been conspicuous in the torture scene, rolled over and lay
quiet. The Apaches, who had been completely absorbed by their frantic
ceremony, and who had not looked for an attack at the moment, nor expected
death at such a distance, uttered a cry of surprise and dismay. There was
a scramble of ten or fifteen screaming horsemen after the audacious
borderer. But immediately on firing he had commenced a rapid retreat, at
the same time reloading. He turned and presented his rifle; just then,
too, a protecting volley burst from the rampart; another Apache fell, and
the rest retreated.

"Capm, it's all right," said Texas, as he rea