e Gatlings, and the
trumpet-calls fell sharp and clear upon the shack. Dallas, watching into
the blackness from her bench by the door, was up and armed on the
instant, and leaning far over the sill, as if to see the better through
the dark. Soon she made out something--a glimmer--that, in the
beginning, was redder than the flare of the lightning, fainter, and more
fixed; but which, growing as the din grew, swiftly deepened in colour,
spread wide, and rose, throwing into relief the intervening grove of
cottonwoods, and the form of a man who was racing riverward from the
swale. He disappeared, swelling the distant clamour with a cry--a dread
cry she had never heard before--of "Fire!"

She shut the door behind her and waited a moment. She was no longer
merely watchful. She was uncertain and troubled.

Presently she went in and bent over Marylyn, touching her gently, and
speaking low to save her a fright. "Honey, dear, honey. Hop up and see
what's happ'ning at the Fort."

The younger girl scrambled to her feet, putting out nervous hands to her
sister. Dallas quieted her. And they stood together in the door.

And, now, across the Missouri, the guns and trumpets suddenly stilled,
and the shouting lessened. While the glow rapidly thickened into a
roaring press of flame, before which darted the troopers, like flies in
the light of a lamp.

"My! my!" whispered Marylyn, her voice quavering with sorrow and awe.
She found her clothes and, keeping in line with the door, began to
dress.

"Looks pretty bad," said Dallas, soberly. The silencing of the guns
augured well, however; and she added thankfully, "It could be a lot
worse, though."

"I'll put on my shoes, and we can go down a ways, so's to see close.
Shall I, Dal----"

"Sh!" Dallas was leaning out again, her head lowered as if to listen.
All at once she turned and, kneeling, felt about on the floor for her
cartridge-belt. "Yes, yes," she answered; "put 'em on--quick!"

"Are we going down to watch?"

"No."

The barracks and the stables were high, cherry-hued pyres, terrible
enough to the eye, with their tops crooking northward in the wind. To
Dallas' ear, they were far more terrible, telling of awful
suffering--hinting of direful intent. For the nearer pyre sent proof of
a sacrifice. She could hear the screams of a horse.

The belt found, she stepped back to the door. "Hurry, hurry," she said.
The old iron resolve never to desert the shack was fusing in the heat o