is face slightly, so
that the blood came. With a curse he struck her full in the face with
his clinched fist and she fell as if dead, and lay with her hands
twitching feebly.

"Take your half-breed brat," he hissed, throwing the baby roughly on the
ground beside her. He turned to walk away, but something in the
motionless form of the child caused him to look again, and he saw that
his little head lay doubled under his arm in a way that could only mean
one thing--a broken neck.

Malita rose unsteadily to her feet and looked about in a dazed way until
her gaze rested upon the little body of her dead baby; the next instant
she was striking and cutting at Tixinopa, screaming like a mad thing.

The attack was so sudden and fierce that, trained athlete and fighter as
he was, Tixinopa received a deep cut on the shoulder and a slight one on
the arm before he succeeded in grasping her wrist, and twisting the
knife from her. Then, seizing her by the hair, he drew her to him and
drove the knife twice into her breast, throwing her to the ground, where
she lay gasping her life away in broken sobs.

Tixinopa stood for a moment looking at Malita and was quite still. His
arm pained him and he held up his hand and watched the blood dripping
from his fingers. Then he took a self-cocking revolver from his belt and
fired shot after shot into the bodies of the dead baby and the dying
mother. Twice the hammer clicked on an empty shell before he ceased to
pull the trigger, and he slowly turned away, pushing his empty pistol
into his belt. As he did so he found himself face to face with Jones,
but a different Jones than the one he had known. This Jones' face was
white and drawn, and looked years older than the other Jones. The hand
which held a pistol pointed at him shook unsteadily. A minute, perhaps
two minutes, passed, and still the two men faced each other; then an
evil light came into Tixinopa's eyes, and his hand slid slowly towards
the handle of his knife, to be instantly smashed by a bullet from Jones'
pistol. Another shot and the other arm was broken at the elbow. Neither
man had spoken, but now Tixinopa began a low, wild chant. Raised to his
full height, with his broken arms hanging by his sides, he chanted the
death song of his people, the same song which had been sung by his
father, and his father's father, and for generations past by all the
dying warriors of his tribe.

"Tixinopa," the voice was a husky whisper, "for her sak