How long those twenty men sat there, gazing at that mute, motionless
figure on the ground not one could have told. Death was no stranger to
them. For years it had lurked behind every chance shrub they passed, in
the depths of every ravine, in the darkness of night, from every tangle
of rank prairie grass in broad daylight. To it from long familiarity
they had become callous; but death such as this, deliberate,
cold-blooded, self-inflicted--it awed them while it fascinated, held
them silent, passive.

"In God's name!" Again it was Landor who roused them, Landor with his
hand on the holster at his hip, Landor who sat staring as one who doubts
his own sight. "Am I sane, men? Look, there to your right!"

They looked. They rubbed their eyes and looked again.

"Well, I'll be damned," voiced Crosby; and no man had ever heard him
express surprise before. To the north, from the edge of the tall
surrounding grass, moving slowly, yet without a trace of hesitation or
of fear, coming straight toward them across the trampled earth, were two
tiny human figures, hand in hand. No wonder they who saw stared; no
wonder they doubted their eyes. One, the figure to the right, was plump
and uncertain of step and all in white; white which in the moonlight
and against the black earth seemed ghostly. The other was slim and
certain of movement and dark--dark as a copper brown Indian boy, naked
as when he came on earth. On they came, the brown figure leading, the
white following trustfully, until they were quite up to the watchers,
halted, still hand in hand.

"How," said a voice, a piping childish voice.