The blaze flickered higher. I watched it, with every fiber of my being revolting against such savagery, and the need for it. I glanced at Piegan and Bevans. The one looked on with grim repression, the other with blanched face. And suddenly Hicks jerked up his knees and heaved himself bodily aside with a scream of fear.
"Put it out! Put it out!" he cried. "I'll tell you. For God's sake—anything but the fire!"
"Be quick, then," MacRae muttered, "before I move you back."
"Last night," Hicks gasped, "when we pulled into the gorge to camp, she jerked the six-shooter out uh Lessard's belt and made a run for it. She took to the brush. It was dark, and we couldn't follow her. I don't know where she got to, except that she started down the creek. We hunted for her half the night—didn't see nothin'. That's the truth, s'help me."
"Down the creek—say, by the great Jehosophat!" Piegan exclaimed. "D'yuh remember that racket in the water this mornin'? Yuh wait." He turned and ran down-stream. Almost instantly the smoke had swallowed him.
MacRae stood staring for a second or two, then turned and scattered the fire broadcast on the sand with a movement of his foot. He lifted his hat, and I saw that his forehead and hair was damp with sweat.
"That was a job I had mighty little stomach for," he said, catching my eye and smiling faintly. "I thought that sulky brute would come through if I made a strong bluff. I reckon I'd have weakened in another minute, if he hadn't."
"Ugh!" I shuddered. "It gave me the creeps. I wouldn't make a good Indian."
"Nor I," he agreed. "But I had to know. And I feel better now. I'm not afraid for Lyn, since I know she got away from them."
Piegan, at this moment, set up a jubilant hallooing down the river, and shortly came rushing back to us.