laid out a beat that half circled the
squat building.

"There's just one man I got to look out for," he said aloud. "It'd be
different if I had to worry about Indians."

That moment, across the river, in the lodge of Standing Buffalo, the
young chieftain was bending over an uncovered box, holding in one hand
the shaft of an arrow, on the end of which was a piece of freshly killed
dog; in the other hand he held a willow wand, sharpened. Beneath him,
crawling and coiling and singing, were Lieutenant Fraser's rattlers.

The Indian kept the shaft to one side while he diligently prodded the
reptiles with the willow. When he had enraged them so that they began to
strike blindly at each other and at themselves, he lowered the shaft and
let them drive their fangs into the meat. And when they were spent with
their anger and springing, he covered the box and held up the flesh,
which had turned from red to green, and was dripping dark with venom.
Then, into it, he began thrusting the points of a quiver of arrows.

CHAPTER XXXI

BY THE LIGHT OF A MATCH

A smudge was burning at the centre of the stockade. In its lee, to be
safe from the swarms of pestering mosquitoes, sat the hostage braves.
Their pipe-smoke blended with the smoke of the fire. Their loud
gibberish was broken only when shrieks of laughter followed a sally of
wit. Their black eyes sparkled. Their white teeth flashed.

Before them were their sons, now romping with the favoured dogs of the
pack; now gathering to watch a wrestling-match between a chosen couple;
again, lining the way while several raced down the enclosure.

The squaws and girls were also outside the lodges, the July night being
hot. They cackled together to the windward side of the lordly males, and
did not approach except to throw more wet sticks upon the smoulder.

The outcast watched the jollity from his dark corner, and marvelled at
it. For were there not two tragedies threatening, either of which
should, properly, lay hard upon the hearts of the village?

One was the nearing execution of the four condemned. Two sleeps ago, on
the arrival of a runner from the absent cavalry, a wood-wagon had hauled
several loads of lumber to the site of the pony corral. From that
lumber--it was said openly, and he had told it in sign-language to the
braves, was to be built--_a scaffold_!

The other tragedy hovered in the illness of Brown Mink. Since her lodge
had been placed against the upper curv