It was a dismal place as could be conceived—enough to make a man shudder of itself, but the physician did still more so when he saw a man swinging between heaven and earth, suspended by one foot, head downward, with hundreds of foul birds pecking at and no doubt tearing his eyes out.
"Thus perish the enemies of the Sioux," said the old Medicine, triumphantly.
"Great heaven! is it—can it be the scout?" gasped the prisoner, who knew far better than any one not of his profession, how the blood would settle into the head and a most slow and horrible death follow.
"It is the dog of a pale-face!" was the savage response. "He thought to escape from the red-man, but the great Manitou brought swift destruction."
"May the fall have instantly deprived him of life!"
It was the only and best wish the prisoner could breathe for one in so desperate a situation, but to increase his mental agony and without knowing any thing of the matter, the Medicine replied:
"While he was yet alive, he was devoured piecemeal by buzzards and crows—is yet alive, see."
The prisoner strained his eyes and was certain he could see the arms uplifted as of one struggling in pain, and it made his very flesh creep to think of such a death. But the Medicine quickly recalled him to a sense of his own situation by saying:
"The torture of the pale-face will be no better. He will wish for death for hours and days before it comes—will not even have carrion birds to help bring it, and though wolves will howl around and serpents hiss, they will not come near enough to destroy, beg as he may the Manitou for them to do so."
But there was a single morsel of comfort—a single ray of sunshine amid all the darkness. His darling Olive was spared the pain of knowing his fate. Her sufferings, heaven be thanked, were ended. She could never be tortured more, in mind or body, and would be standing a bright-winged angel, to welcome him to the shining shore.