in
showed a dark speck at its summit,--had she ever noticed that before?
Other peaks looked unfamiliar--were they the lookouts of savage spies?
And north, far beyond the "little bend" was the smoke of a camp-fire. In
fancy, she saw the one who had lighted it--a warrior with vindictive,
painted face, who peered at the squat shack on the bend as he fanned and
smothered the flame.

Night was at hand. The plover were wailing; the sad-voiced pewits
called; one by one, the frogs began a lonesome chant. A light had sprung
up in the shack. She glanced that way. And the window eyes of the
log-house seemed to leer at her.

A warm supper, Marylyn's bright face, her father's placid retorts--all
these did not suffice to drive away her forebodings. What was there in
the coming night?

All her instinct spoke for caution. The lantern was shaken out before
the table was cleared. Her father and sister early sought their beds.
She only lay down in her clothes. The hours passed in a strange
suspense. She listened to her father's deep breathing, to the mules,
when they wandered into their stalls, to the snap of Simon's long brush
as he whipped at the mosquitoes. Her eyes kept searching the black
corners of the room, and the pale squares of the windows. Her ears were
alert for every sound.

She fell to thinking of Squaw Charley. He had not come for his supper,
or brought them the daily basket. Was he growing indifferent--to them?

It was when she could no longer keep awake that her thoughts assumed
even a terrible shape. She dreamed, and in her dream a head came through
the dirt floor close to her bed. It was covered by a war-bonnet of
feathers. Beside it, thrust up by lissome fingers--fingers white and
strangely familiar--was a tomahawk.

Soon, she made out a face--Matthews'. She squirmed, striving to summon
her father. A flame flickered up in the fireplace. The face changed from
white to red, and Charley danced before her. She squirmed again; the
face faded----

She found herself sitting bolt upright. Her hands were clenched
defensively, her teeth were shut so tight that her jaws ached. She was
staring, wide-eyed, at the door.

The shack was no longer in darkness. Morning was come, and its light
made everything clear. She sprang up and lifted the latch, then fell
back, her stiffened lips framing a cry.

Before the shack, driven deep into the nearest bit of unpacked ground,
was a sapling, new-cut and stripped clean of the bark.