the thatched roof, silent as before, patient as fate, awaited two other
shadows, darker but by contrast with the weather-coloured grass.

Minutes passed. Not even the call of the catbird, broke the silence.
Within the darkness of the cabin the suspense was a thing of which
insanity is made.

"Sam!" called a voice softly.

No answer.

"Sam!" repeated more loudly.

Again no answer of voice or of action.

In the doorway appeared a woman's figure; breathless, blindly fearful.

"Sam!" for the third time, tremulous, wailing; and she stepped outside.

A second, and it was over. A second, and the revel was on. The earth was
not silent now. There was no warning trill of prairie owl. As dropped
the figures from above there broke forth the Sioux war-cry: long drawn
out, demoniac, indescribable. Blood curdling, more savage infinitely
than the cry of any wild beast, the others took it up, augmented it by a
score, a hundred throats. Again the earth vomited the demons forth.
Naked, breech-clouted, garbed in fragments of white men's dress, they
swarmed into the clearing, into the cabin, about the two prisoners in
their midst. Passively, patiently waiting for hours, of a sudden they
seemed possessed of a frenzy of haste, of savage abandon, of drunken
exhilaration in the cunning that had won the game without a shot from