“Strike me!” she begged, facing the uplifted ax unflinchingly; and although not of the border she displayed the fine courage of the Widow McCabe and other frontier women.
With a whimpering, bestial note Ward managed to say:
“No! You shall live, and many times beg me to kill you. But you shall still live till I trade you to some red hunter.”
“I will kill myself some way before you can harm me!” she defied.
Ward slowly lowered his ax and began chuckling. He told her, pointing to me:
“This man. He loved you. He was a fool. I say was because his life is behind him. It is something that is finished, a trace followed to the end. He is a dead man as he lies there. He loved you. I believe you loved him. He is my prisoner. Now you can guess why I know you will not harm yourself.”
I knew. She was suffering too much to reason clearly. But he was eager to help her to understand He amplified by explaining:
“It will be for you to say if he is to be tortured. He is young and strong. We could keep him alive many days after the fire began to burn him. It will be a fine game to see whom you love the better, yourself or him. You will be free to go about the camp. But this man will be watched all the time. After we take the fort to-night you will come to me and ask to be my woman.
“I had planned to take your father for my second prisoner. My medicine tells me to take this man as he will live longer. Remember; you will ask to be my squaw. That sapling was trimmed for you; it will do for this man. You will come to me, or he goes to the stake. Now, go!”
And he reached out his hand and sent her spinning and reeling toward her father.