by Zane Grey
Neale was the first man who dismounted, and Larry King was the second.They had outstripped the more cautious troopers.
"My Gawd!" breathed Larry.
Neale gripped his rifle with fierce hands and strode forward between twoof the burned wagons. Naked, mutilated bodies, bloody and ghastly, layin horrible positions. All had been scalped.
Slingerland rode up with the troops, and all dismounted, cursing andmuttering.
Colonel Dillon ordered a search for anything to identify the dead. Therewas nothing. All had been burned or taken away. Of the camp implements,mostly destroyed, there were two shovels left, one with a burnt handle.These were used by the troopers to dig graves.
Neale had at first been sickened by the ghastly spectacle. He walkedaside a little way and sat down upon a rock. His face was wet withclammy sweat. A gnawing rage seemed to affect him in the pit of thestomach. This was his first experience with the fiendish work of thesavages. A whirl of thoughts filled his mind.
Suddenly he fancied he heard a low moan. He started violently. "Well,I'm hearing things," he muttered, soberly.
It made him so nervous that he got up and walked back to where thetroopers were digging. He saw the body of a woman being lowered into agrave and the sight reminded him of what Slingerland had said. He sawthe scout searching around and he went over to him.
"Have you found the girl?" he asked.
"Not yet. I reckon the devils made off with her. They'd take her, if shehappened to be alive."
"God! I hope she's dead."
"Wal, son, so does Al Slingerland."
More searching failed to find the body of the girl. She was given up aslost.
"I'll find out if she was took captive," said Slingerland. "This Siouxband has been friendly with me."
"Man, they're on the war-path," rejoined Dillon.
"Wal, I've traded with them same Sioux when they was on the war-path....This massacre sure is awful, an' the Sioux will hev to be extarminated.But they hev their wrongs. An' Injuns is Injuns."
Slabs of rock were laid upon the graves. Then the troopers rode away.
Neale and Slingerland and Larry King were the last to mount. And it wasat this moment that Neale either remembered the strange, low moan orheard it again. He reined in his horse.
"I'm going back," he called.
"What fer?" Slingerland rejoined.
Larry King wheeled his mount and trotted back to Neale.
"Red, I'm not satisfied," said Neale, and told his friend what hethought he had heard.
"Boy, you're oot of yur haid!" expostulated Red.
"Maybe I am. But I'm going back. Are you coming?"
"Shore," replied Red, with his easy good nature.
Slingerland sat his horse and watched while he waited. The dust-cloudthat marked the troops drew farther away.
Neale dismounted, threw his bridle, and looked searchingly around.But Larry, always more comfortable on horseback than on land, kepthis saddle. Suddenly Neale felt inexplicably drawn in a certaindirection--toward a rocky ledge. Still he heard nothing except the windin the few scraggy trees. All the ground in and around the scene ofthe massacre had been gone over; there was no need to examine it again.Neale had nothing tangible upon which to base his strange feeling. Yetabsurd or not, he refused to admit it was fancy or emotion. Some voicehad called him. He swore it. If he did not make sure he would always behaunted. So with clear, deliberate eyes he surveyed the scene. Then hestrode for the ledge of rock.
Tufts of sage grew close at its base. He advanced among them. Thesurface of the rock was uneven--and low down a crack showed. At thatinstant a slow, sobbing, gasping intake of breath electrified Neale.
"Red--come here!" he yelled, in a voice that made the cowboy jump.
Neale dropped to his knees and parted the tufts of sage. Lower down thecrack opened up. On the ground, just inside that crack he saw the gleamof a mass of chestnut hair. His first flashing thought was that here wasa scalp the red devils did not get.
Then Red King was kneeling beside him--bending forward. "It's a girl!"he ejaculated.
"Yes--the one Slingerland told me about--the girl with big eyes,"replied Neale. He put a hand softly on her head. It was warm. Her hairfelt silky, and the touch sent a quiver over him. Probably she wasdying.
Slingerland came riding up. "Wal, boys, what hev you found?" he asked,curiously.
"That girl," replied Neale.
The reply brought Slingerland sliding out of his saddle.
Neale hesitated a moment, then reaching into the aperture, he got hishands under the girl's arms and carefully drew her out upon the grass.She lay face down, her hair a tumbled mass, her body inert. Neale'squick eye searched for bloodstains, but found none.
"I remember thet hair," said Slingerland. "Turn her over."
"I reckon we'll see then where she's hurt," muttered Red King.
Evidently Neale thought the same, for he was plainly afraid to place heron her back.
"Slingerland, she's not such a little girl," he said, irrelevantly. Thenhe slipped his hands under her arms again. Suddenly he felt somethingwet and warm and sticky. He pulled a hand out. It was blood-stained.
"Aw!" exclaimed Red.
"Son, what'd you expect?" demanded Slingerland. "She got shot or cut,an' in her fright she crawled in thar. Come, over with her. Let's see.She might live."
This practical suggestion acted quickly upon Neale. He turned the girlover so that her head lay upon his knees. The face thus exposed wasdeathly pale, set like stone in horror. The front of her dress was abloody mass, and her hands were red.
"Stabbed in the breast!" exclaimed King.
"No," replied Slingerland. "If she'd been stabbed she'd been scalped,too. Mebbe thet blood comes from an arrow an' she might hev pulled itout."
Neale bent over her with swift scrutiny. "No cut or hole in her dress!"
"Boys, thar ain't no marks on her--only thet blood," added Slingerland,hopefully.
Neale tore open the front of her blouse and slipped his hand in upon herbreast. It felt round, soft, warm under his touch, but quiet. He shookhis head.
"Those moans I heard must have been her last dying breaths," he said.
"Mebbe. But she shore doesn't look daid to me," replied King. "I've seendaid people. Put your hand on her heart."
Neale had been feeling for heart pulsations on her right side. Heshifted his hand. Instantly through the soft swell of her breastthrobbed a beat-beat-beat. The beatings were regular and not at allfaint.
"Good Lord, what a fool I am!" he cried. "She's alive! Her heart'sgoing! There's not a wound on her!"
"Wal, we can't see any, thet's sure," replied Slingerland.
"She might hev a fatal hurt, all the same," suggested King.
"No!" exclaimed Neale. "That blood's from some one else--most likelyher murdered mother.... Red, run for some water. Fetch it in your hat.Slingerland, ride after the troops."
Slingerland rose and mounted his horse. "Wal, I've an idee. Let's takethe girl to my cabin. Thet's not fur from hyar. It's a long ride to thecamp. An' if she needs the troop doctor we can fetch him to my place."
"But the Sioux?"
"Wal, she'd be safer with me. The Injuns an' me are friends."
"All right. Good. But you ride after the troops, anyhow, and tell Dillonabout the girl--that we're going to your cabin." Slingerland gallopedaway after the dust cloud down the trail.
Neale gazed strangely down at the face of the girl he had rescued. Herlips barely parted to make again the low moan. So that was what hadcalled to him. No--not all! There was something more than this feeblecry that had brought him back to search; there had been some strong andnameless and inexplicable impulse. Neale believed in his impulses--inthose strange ones which came to him at intervals. So far in his lifegirls had been rather negative influences. But this girl, or the factthat he had saved her, or both impressions together, struck deep intohim; life would never again be quite the same to Warren Neale.
Re
d King came striding back with a sombrero full of water.
"Take your scarf and wash that blood off her hands before she comes toand sees it," said Neale.
The cowboy was awkward at the task, but infinitely gentle. "Poor kid!I'll bet she's alone in the world now."
Neale wet his scarf and bathed the girl's face. "If she's only faintedshe ought to be reviving now. But I'm afraid--"
Then suddenly her eyes opened. They were large, violet-hued, coveredwith a kind of veil or film, as though sleep had not wholly gone; andthey were unseeingly, staringly set with horror. Her breast heaved witha sharply drawn breath; her hands groped and felt for something to hold;her body trembled. Suddenly she sat up. She was not weak. Her motionswere violent. The dazed, horror-stricken eyes roved around, but did notfasten upon anything.
"Aw! Gone crazy!" muttered King, pityingly.
It did seem so. She put her hands to her ears as if to shut out ahorrible sound. And she screamed. Neale grasped her shoulders, turnedher round, and forced her into such a position that her gaze must meethis.
"You're safe!" he cried sharply. "The Indians have gone! I'm a whiteman!"
It seemed as though his piercing voice stirred her reason. She staredat him. Her face changed. Her lips parted and her hand, shaking like aleaf, covered them, clutched at them. The other hand waved before her asif to brush aside some haunting terror.
Neale held that gaze with all his power--dominant, masterful, masculine.He repeated what he had said.
Then it became a wonderful and terrible sight to watch her, to divinein some little way the dark and awful state of her mind. The lines, thetenseness, the shade, the age faded out of her face; the deep-set frownsmoothed itself out of her brow and it became young. Neale saw thosestaring eyes fix upon his; he realized a dull, opaque blackness ofhorror, hideous veils let down over the windows of a soul, images ofhell limned forever on a mind. Then that film, that unseeing cold thing,like the shade of sleep or of death, passed from her eyes. Now theysuddenly were alive, great dark-violet gulfs, full of shadows, dilating,changing into exquisite and beautiful lights.
"I'm a white man!" he said, tensely. "You're saved! The Indians aregone!"
She understood him. She realized the meaning of his words. Then, witha low, agonized, and broken cry she shut her eyes tight and reachedblindly out with both hands; she screamed aloud. Shock claimed heragain. Horror and fear convulsed her, and it must have been fear thatwas uppermost. She clutched Neale with fingers of steel, in a grip hecould not have loosened without breaking her bones.
"Red, you saw--she was right in her mind for a moment--you saw?" burstout Neale.
"Shore I saw. She's only scared now," replied King. "It must hev beenhell fer her."
At this juncture Slingerland came riding up to them. "Did she comearound?" he inquired, curiously gazing at the girl as she clung toNeale.
"Yes, for a moment," replied Neale.
"Wal, thet's good.... I caught up with Dillon. Told him. He was mightyglad we found her. Cussed his troopers some. Said he'd explain yourabsence, an' we could send over fer anythin'."
"Let's go, then," said Neale. He tried to loosen the girl's hold on him,but had to give it up. Taking her in his arms, he rose and went towardhis horse. King had to help him mount with his burden. Neale did notimagine he would ever forget that spot, but he took another long look tofix the scene indelibly on his memory. The charred wagons, the graves,the rocks over which the naked, gashed bodies had been flung, the threescraggy trees close together, and the ledge with the dark aperture atthe base--he gazed at them all, and then turned his horse to followSlingerland.