either shore until it was hidden by the trees and undergrowth;
the pleasant hills and all the pleasant world, so hard to leave.
His eyes dwelt particularly upon the hill, a high one, overlooking
the whole valley of the Little Big Horn, and the light was so clear
that he could see every bush and shrub waving there.

His eyes came back from the hill to the throng about him. He had
felt at times a sympathy for the Sioux because the white man was
pressing upon them, driving them from their ancient hunting
grounds that they loved; but they were now wholly savage and
cruel--men, women, and children alike. He hated them all.

Dick was taken to the summit of one of the lower hills, on which
he could be seen by everybody and from which he could see in a
vast circle. He was tied in a peculiar manner. His hands
remained bound behind him, but his feet were free. One end of a
stout rawhide was secured around his waist and the other around a
sapling, leaving him a play of about a half yard. He could not
divine the purpose of this, but he was soon to learn.

Six half-grown boys, with bows and arrows, then seldom used by
grown Sioux, formed a line at a little distance from him, and at
a word from Rain-in-the-Face leveled their bows and fitted arrow
to the string. Dick thought at first they were going to slay him
at once, but he remembered that the Indian did not do things that
way. He knew it was some kind of torture and although he
shivered he steadied his mind to face it.

Rain-in-the-Face spoke again, and six bowstrings twanged. Six
arrows whizzed by Dick, three on one side and three on the other,
but all so close that, despite every effort of will, he shrank
back against the sapling. A roar of laughter came from the
crowd, and Dick flushed through all the tan of two years in the
open air. Now he understood why the rawhide allowed him so
much play. It was a torture of the nerves and of the mind.
They would shoot their arrows by him, graze him perhaps if he
stood steady, but if he sought to evade through fear, if he
sprang either to one side or the other, they might strike in
a vital spot.

He summoned up the last ounce of his courage, put his back
against the sapling and resolved that he would not move, even if
an arrow carried some of his skin with it. The bowstrings
twanged again, and again six arrows whistled by. Dick quivered,
but he did not move, and some applause came from the crowd.
Although it was the a