attempting to bear her along in his arms; must be sure the passage was
unguarded. After it swerved to the right there would be little danger,
but while it ran straight, some cautious savage might have chosen it to
skulk in. To deal with such he needed to be alone, and free.

He must have crawled thus for thirty yards, hands and knees aching
horribly, his eyes ever peering over the edge of the bank, his ears
tingling to the slightest noise. The tiny glow of the fire far away to
the left was alone visible in the intense blackness; the wind brought
to him no sound of movement. The stillness was profound, almost
uncanny; as he paused and listened he could distinguish the throb of
his heart. He was across the trail at last, for he had felt and traced
the ruts of wheels, and where the banks had been worked down almost to
a level with the prairie. He crossed this opening like a snake, and
then arose to his knees beyond, where the gully deepened. He remained
poised, motionless, scarcely daring to breathe. Surely that was
something else--that shapeless blotch of shadow, barely topping the
line of bank! Was it ten feet away? Or five? He could not tell. He
stared; there was no movement, and yet his eyes began to discern dimly
the outlines--the head and shoulders of a man! The Sergeant crept
forward--an inch, two inches, a foot. The figure did not stir. Now he
was sure the fellow's head was lying flat on the turf, oddly distorted
by a feathered war bonnet. The strange posture, the utter lack of
movement, seemed proof that the tired warrior had fallen asleep on
watch. Like a cat Hamlin crept up slowly toward him, poised for a
spring.

Some sense of the wild must have stirred the savage into
semi-consciousness. Suddenly he sat up, gripping the gun in his hands.
Yet even as his opening eyes saw dimly the Sergeant's menacing shadow,