In the savage warfare which had ended in the subjugation of the kingly tribes, Indian life was held scarcely more sacred than that of the wild deer and panthers that infested the hills. When the constable saw that athletic savage lying upon the turf, with his broad chest exposed like that of a bronze statue, he drew the gun which he carried to his shoulder with a grim smile, called on God to bless the murder, and touched the ponderous lock with his finger. A sharp click, a loud report, a fierce cry: the savage leaped into the air, fell upon his face, all his limbs quivering, and with a single spasm lay dead across the entrance of Barbara Stafford's hiding-place.
Barbara came forth white and trembling, saw the dead savage at her feet, and looked fearfully around for his murderers. A group of men and a wreath of pale smoke curling out upon the air revealed all her danger. She did not retreat, but fell upon her knees and lifted the head of the Indian up from the ground. Drops of crimson stole down the bronze chest and fell slowly to the turf.
Barbara did not attempt to escape, though she saw at a glance all her danger. The savage who had been her protector was shot through the heart. The sight of so much life and strength smitten down in one instant paralyzed her. She had never witnessed a violent death before, and the shock bereft her alike of hope and fear.
The constable understood, and whispering his men to follow, crept toward her. She saw him without caring to escape, but, stooping over the body of her friend, shook her head mournfully as he came up.
"Unhappy man, you have killed him," she said, lifting her eyes to his face with a glance of pathetic reproach.
The constable stooped down, dragged the body from her feet, and cast it headlong down the slope of earth on which she stood. Then, without a word, he seized Barbara by both her wrists, and grasped them together with a firm grip of one hand, while he searched in his pocket for a thong of deer-skin prepared for the occasion. Putting one end of the thong between his teeth, he wound the other tightly over her wrists—so tightly that the delicate hands grew purple to the finger ends. Then he finished his barbarous work with a double knot tightened with both hands and teeth.
The outraged woman lifted her eyes to his face with a frightened look as he performed this brutal act, but she neither protested nor struggled; once she observed gently that he hurt her hands, but, when no heed was taken, allowed him to proceed without further remonstrance.
When her hands were bound, the constable tore down her shawl from the entrance of the lodge and placed it on her shoulders, crossing it over her bosom and knotting it behind, thus forming a double thraldom for her arms.
She bore it all patiently and in silence; once she cast an earnest look into the depths of the forest, perhaps with a hope that her savage friends might come to the rescue, but she only met the gleaming eyes of a wild-cat, swinging lazily on a bough to which human approach had driven him. Even there her glance was answered by a low growl and a gleam of savage teeth. The wild beasts were defying her in one direction, and human cruelty dragging her to death in another.
Thus, helpless and unresisting, she was forced into the settlement again, bound like a criminal. She made neither protest nor resistance, but remained quietly in the hands of her captors, accepting her fate with touching resignation.