from the spot. His will held good. A second
welt sprang up, and a third. It was not until the fourth landed that
the boy screamed. Also, he could no longer stand still, and from then
on, blow after blow, he danced up and down in his anguish, screaming;
but he did not attempt to run away. If his involuntary dancing took
him beyond the reach of the whip, he danced back into range again. And
when it was all over--a dozen blows--he went away, whimpering and
squealing, among the wagons.

The chief stood still and waited. The second boy came out from the
trees. But he did not come straight. He came like a cringing dog,
obsessed by little panics that made him turn and dart away for half a
dozen steps. But always he turned and came back, circling nearer and
nearer to the man, whimpering, making inarticulate animal-noises in
his throat. I saw that he never looked at the man. His eyes always
were fixed upon the whip, and in his eyes was a terror that made me
sick--the frantic terror of an inconceivably maltreated child. I have
seen strong men dropping right and left out of battle and squirming in
their death-throes, I have seen them by scores blown into the air by
bursting shells and their bodies torn asunder; believe me, the
witnessing was as merrymaking and laughter and song to me in
comparison with the way the sight of that poor child affected me.

The whipping began. The whipping of the first boy was as play compared
with this one. In no time the blood was running down his thin little
legs. He danced and squirmed and doubled up till it seemed almost that
he was some grotesque marionette operated by strings. I say "seemed,"
for his screaming gave the lie to the seeming and stamped it with
reality. His shrieks were shrill and piercing; within them no hoarse
notes, but only the thin sexlessness of the voice of a child. The time
came when the boy could stand it no more. Reason fled, and he tried to
run away. But now the man followed up, curbing his flight, herding him
with blows back always into the open space.

Then came interruption. I heard a wild smothered cry. The woman who
sat in the wagon seat had got out and was running to interfere. She
sprang between the man and boy.

"You want some, eh?" said he with the whip. "All right, then."

He swung the whip upon her. Her skirts were long, so he did not try
for her legs. He drove the lash for her face, which she shielded as
best she could with her hands and forearms, droopi