der rode silently on his circle about the boy, and Dick
turned slowly with him, always facing the eyes that faced him.
He could dimly make out the shape of a rifle at the saddlebow,
but the Sioux did not raise it, he merely rode on in that
ceaseless treadmill tramp, and Dick wondered what he meant to
do. Was he waiting for the others to come up?

Time passed and there was no sign of a second horseman. The
single warrior still rode around him, and Dick still turned with
him. He might be coming nearer in his ceaseless curves, but Dick
could not tell. Although he was the hub of the circle, he began
to have a dizzy sensation, as if the world were swimming about
him. He became benumbed, as if his head were that of a whirling
dervish.

Dick became quite sure now that the warrior and his horse were
unreal, a creation of the vapors and the mists, and that he
himself was dreaming. He saw, too, at last that they were coming
nearer, and he felt horror, as if something demonic were about to
seize him and drag him down. He crouched so long that he felt
pain in his knees, and all things were becoming a blur before his
eyes. Yet there had not been a sound but that of the bitter,
moaning wind.

There was a flash, a shot, the sigh of a bullet rushing past, and
Dick came out of his dream. The Sioux had raised the rifle from
his saddlebow and fired. But he had been too soon. The shifting
and deceptive quality of the darkness caused him to miss. Dick
promptly raised his own rifle and fired in return. He also
missed, but a second bullet from the warrior cut a lock from his
temple.

Dick was now alert in every nerve. He had not wanted the life of
this savage, but the savage wanted his; it seemed also that
everything was in favor of the savage getting it, but his own
spirit rose to meet the emergency; he, too, became the hunter.

He sank a little lower and saved his fire until the warrior
galloped nearer. Then he sent a bullet so close that he saw one
of the long eagle feathers drop from the hair of the warrior.
The sight gave him a savage exultation that he would have
believed a few hours before impossible to him. The next bullet
might not merely clip a feather!

The Sioux, contrary to the custom of the Indian, did not utter a
sound, nor did Dick say a word. The combat, save for the reports
of the rifle shots, went on in absolute silence. It lasted a full
ten minutes, when the Indian urged his horse to a gallop,