ush!" said the chief. "What does the warrior want with the scalps of
women? We war on your men because they kill our game and steal our land."

"Is it possible that you come to our homes except to kill?"

"We are strangers and have lost our way. You must guide us to the foot of
Toccoa and lead us to our friends."

"I lead you? Never!"

The chief raised his axe, but the woman did not flinch. There was a
pause, in which the iron still hung menacing. Suddenly the dame looked up
and said, "If you promise to protect me, I will lead you."

The promise was given and the band set forth, the aged guide in advance,
bending against the storm and clasping her poor rags about her. In the
darkest part of the wood, where the roaring of wind and groaning of
branches seemed the louder for the booming of waters, she cautioned the
band to keep in single file, but to make haste, for the way was far and
the gloom was thickening. Bending their heads against the wind they
pressed forward, she in advance. Suddenly, yet stealthily, she sprang
aside and crouched beneath a tree that grew at the very brink of the
fall. The Indians came on, following blindly, and in an instant she
descried the leader as he went whirling over the edge, and one after
another the party followed. When the last had gone to his death she arose
to her feet with a laugh of triumph. "Now I, too, can die!" she cried. So
saying, she fell forward into the grayness of space.

TWO LIVES FOR ONE

The place of Macon, Georgia, in the early part of this century was marked
only by an inn. One of its guests was a man who had stopped there on the
way to Alabama, where he had bought land. The girl who was, to be his
wife was to follow in a few days. In the morning when he paid his
reckoning he produced a well-filled pocket-book, and he did not see the
significant look that passed between two rough black-bearded fellows who
had also spent the night there, and who, when he set forth, mounted their
horses and offered to keep him company. As they rode through the deserted
village of Chilicte one of the twain engaged the traveller in talk while
the other, falling a little behind, dealt him a blow with a loaded whip
that unseated him. Divining their purpose, and lacking weapons for his
own defence, he begged for mercy, and asked to be allowed to return to
his bride to be, but the robbers had already made themselves liable to
penalty, and two knife-thrusts in the breast silenced hi