ce
forward and said loudly:

"How!"

The Indian with the medal answered him, a deep, gutteral note.

"Pawnee?" David asked.

The same man replied with a word that none of them understood.

"My camp is just here," said David, with a backward jerk of his head.
"There are many men there."

There was no response to this and he stepped back and said to Susan:

"Go slowly up the hill backward and keep your eyes on them. Don't look
afraid."

She immediately began to retreat with slow, short steps. Leff, gasping
with fear, moved with her, his speed accelerating with each moment.
David a few paces in advance followed them. The Indians watched in a
tranced intentness of observation. At the top of the slope the three
squaws sat as motionless as carven images. The silence was profound.

Into it, dropping through it like a plummet through space, came the
report of a rifle. It was distant but clear, and as if the bullet had
struck a taut string and severed it, it cut the tension sharp and life
flowed back. A movement, like a resumed quiver of vitality, stirred
the bronze stillness of the squaws. The Indians spoke together--a low
murmur. David thought he saw indecision in their colloquy, then
decision.

"They're going," he heard Susan say a little hoarse.

"Oh, God, they're going!" Leff gasped, as one reprieved of the death
sentence.

Suddenly they wheeled, and a rush of wild figures, galloped up the
slope. The group of squaws broke and fled with them. The light struck
the bare backs, and sent splinters from the gun barrels and the noise
of breaking bushes was loud under the ponies' feet.

Once again on the road David and Susan stood looking at one another.
Each was pale and short of breath, and it was difficult for the young
girl to force her stiffened lips into a smile. The sunset struck with
fierce brilliancy across the endless plain, and against it, the Indians
bending low, fled in a streak of broken color. In the other direction
Leff's running figure sped toward the camp. From the distance a rifle
shot again sundered the quiet. After silence had reclosed over the
rift a puff of smoke rose in the air. They knew now it was Daddy John,
fearing they had lost the way, showing them the location of the camp.

Spontaneously, without words, they joined hands and started to where
the trail of smoke still hung, dissolving to a thread. The fleeing
figure of Leff brought no comments to their lips. They did