her questioningly, some
shouting words I could not hear. Then I saw some running; and next, as
I stood there wondering, came another crack, and then a volley like the
noise of a great fire licking into dry wood, and things that were
not bees humming round about. A distant man in a yellow hunting shirt
stumbled, and was drowned in the tangle as in water. Around me men
dropped plough-handles and women baskets, and as we ran our legs grew
numb and our bodies cold at a sound which had haunted us in dreams by
night--the war-whoop. The deep and guttural song of it rose and fell
with a horrid fierceness. An agonized voice was in my ears, and I
halted, ashamed. It was Polly Ann's.

"Davy!" she cried, "Davy, have ye seen Tom?"

Two men dashed by. I seized one by the fringe of his shirt, and he flung
me from my feet. The other leaped me as I knelt.

"Run, ye fools!" he shouted. But we stood still, with yearning eyes
staring back through the frantic forms for a sight of Tom's.

"I'll go back!" I cried, "I'll go back for him. Do you run to the fort."
For suddenly I seemed to forget my fear, nor did even the hideous notes
of the scalp halloo disturb me. Before Polly Ann could catch me I
had turned and started, stumbled,--I thought on a stump,--and fallen
headlong among the nettles with a stinging pain in my leg. Staggering to
my feet, I tried to run on, fell again, and putting down my hand found
it smeared with blood. A man came by, paused an instant while his eye
caught me, and ran on again. I shall remember his face and name to my
dying day; but there is no reason to put it down here. In a few seconds'
space as I lay I suffered all the pains of captivity and of death by
torture, that cry of savage man an hundred times more frightful than
savage beast sounding in my ears, and plainly nearer now by half the
first distance. Nearer, and nearer yet--and then I heard my name called.
I was lifted from the ground, and found myself in the lithe arms of
Polly Ann.

"Set me down!" I screamed, "set me down!" and must have added some of
the curses I had heard in the fort. But she clutched me tightly (God
bless the memory of those frontier women!), and flew like a deer toward
the gates. Over her shoulder I glanced back. A spare three hundred yards
away in a ragged line a hundred red devils were bounding after us with
feathers flying and mouths open as they yelled. Again I cried to her
to set me down; but though her heart beat faster and he