on and rode forward
to parley with the half-starved savages. He rode right up to them,
and their chief came forth to have a talk with him.

This captain was a fine figure of a man, and those who watched him say
that he made a noble picture on his big troop-horse before the frowzy
band whose gaunted members squatted in the bear-grass, their beady
eyes glinting on him under their dirty turbans. And he was a good,
persuasive talker. He promised them safe-conduct to the reservation
and assured them that their truancy would be overlooked, were they to
come back now.

He went on to tell of the rations which would be issued to them. He
dwelt on that; he mentioned the leanness of their bodies and described
at length the stores of food that were awaiting for them in the
reservation warehouse.

And the words of the captain were beginning to have an effect. There
was a stirring among the warriors and a muttering; men glanced at
their squaws and the squaws looked at their children. The captain went
on as if unconscious that his eloquence was bearing fruit.

All the time he was speaking a girl just grown to womanhood kept
edging toward him. In the days when food was plenty she must have
owned a savage sort of beauty; but her limbs were lank now and her
cheeks were wasted. Her eyes were overlarge from fasting as they hung
on the face of the big captain.

So she stood at last in the very forefront of her people, quite
unconscious that other eyes were watching her. And behind her her
people stirred more and more uneasily; they were very hungry.

Under the hot, clear sky the troopers sat in their saddles, silent,
waiting. The lieutenant who had been left in charge watched the little
drama. He saw how the moment of the crisis was approaching; how just
one little movement in the right direction, one word perhaps, would
turn the issue. He saw the half-starved girl leaning forward, her lips
parted as she listened to the big captain. He saw an old squaw,
wrinkled and toothless, venom in her eyes, crouching beside the
hungered girl.

Suddenly the girl took an eager step forward. As if it were a signal a
full half of the band started in the same direction.

And just then with the turning of the scales, just as the captain's
eloquence was winning, the old squaw sprang to her feet. She whirled
an ax over her head and brought it down upon the girl. And before the
body had fallen to the earth a warrior leveled his rifle and shot the
cap