her hand across her own throat as though she held a knife, and then
laughed while her eyes sparkled.

Again he understood, and for the first time that day he smiled. There
are no preliminaries when a savage warrior concludes to act. The
abruptness of the Bat's love-making left room for few words, and his
attentions were not repulsed except that the fear of her liege lord out
by the carts made her flutter to escape that she might reassure herself.
She was once again covered by the sweep of the warrior's robe, and what
they whispered there, standing in its folds, no man can tell. The abrupt
entrance of Papin drowned all other thoughts, and filled the quiet fort
with a whirl of struggles and yells, in which all joined, even to the
dogs.

The outcome was that the Bat found himself thrown ignominiously into the
dust outside the walls, and the gate slammed after him. He gathered
himself together and looked around. No one of his people had seen the
melee from which he had emerged so ingloriously, yet humiliation was
terrible. Nothing like this had occurred before. Cowardly French
half-breeds had laid their hands on the warrior's body, even on his
sacred bat and eagle-plume; and they had been content to throw him away
as though he were a bone--merely to be rid of him.

His rage was so great that he was in a torpor; he did not even speak,
but walked away hearing the shrieks of the squaw being beaten by Papin.

Going to the camp, he got a pony and rode to the hills, where he
dismounted and sat down. The day passed, the night came, and morning
found the Bat still sitting there.