watched it all absently, meditatively; as he would have watched the
movement of a coyote or a prairie owl, for the simple reason that it was
the only visible object endowed with life, and instinctively life
responds to life. The words of his wife just spoken, "It is too late,"
with the revelation they bore, were echoing in his brain. For the first
time, to his mind came a vague unformed suggestion, not of fear, but
near akin, as to this lonely prairie wilderness, and the red man its
child. In a hazy way came the question whether after all it were not
foolhardy to remain here now, to dare that invisible, intangible
something before which, almost in panic, the others had fled. To be
sure, precedent was with him, logic; but--of a sudden--but a minute had
passed--his arms tightened; involuntarily he held his breath. Hans
Mueller had been moving on and on; another half minute and he would have
been behind the base of the hill out of sight; when, as from the turf
at one's feet there springs a-wing a covey of prairie grouse, from the
tall grass about the retreating figure there leaped forth a swarm of
other similar dark figures: a dozen, a score--in front, behind, all
about. Apparently from mother earth herself they had come,
autochthonous. Almost unbelieving, the spectator blinked his eyes; then,
as came swift understanding, instinctively he shielded the woman in his
arms from the sight, from the knowledge. Not a sound came to his ears
from over the prairie: not a single call for help. That black swarm
simply arose, there was a brief, sharp struggle, almost fantastic
through the curling heat waves; then one and all, the original dark
figure, the score of others, disappeared--as suddenly as though the
earth from which they came had swallowed them up. Look as he might, the
spectator could catch no glimpse of a moving object, except the
green-brown grass carpet glistening under the afternoon sun.

Yet a moment longer the man stood so; then, his own face as pale as had