"Wind-swift, my brothers," bade Lame Foot.
The Indians rushed back to where hammers had been ringing for days past. They tore away boards of the scaffold. Then, returning to the river, they dropped in.
Matthews called after them. "Remember your promise," he said; "and do not drink the water-that-burns in my lodge."
There was no answer.
And now the interpreter took thought for himself. At sundown he had lusted for the night's doing. But the heart was gone out of him. Even before the stampede, the whole affair had assumed monster proportions. He had begun to think of the murdered, and of the maiming, and had wished himself well out of it. Now, with no horse to carry him across to safety, there seemed to face him only discovery and punishment.
"Well, they drove me to it," he complained. "This wouldn't 'a' happened if they'd give me a square deal." He was wrenching with all his might at a section of the scaffold platform. "I wanted to be decent, and they treated me like a dog."
With this, he ran down the river bank and launched his frail raft. "Anyhow," he said, "I'll git out o' this jus' as fast as water'll take me!"