Then he gave the word, and all the rifles were fired at once. The cañon was filled with smoke and the whistling of bullets. Most of the men in the train were killed at once, and then the warriors sprang among those who were left. Flying Cloud had shot the tall man by the wagon, and then he sought the woman and the two children. He slew the woman and the little boy, and he scalped them both. Then he sprang at the girl, but the child of the Evil Spirit slipped among the bushes, and he could not find her.
The old chief stopped a moment, and once more his glittering eyes swept the circle of white faces, but saw them not. Then that fierce cry burst again from Plummer. Suddenly he threw off Harley as if he had been a child, and sprang through the ring of white faces into the circle of the firelight. The tall, pale girl, still not saying a word, stood by, like an avenging goddess.
"Murderer!" cried the "King." "It is not too late to punish you!"
He seized the old chief by the throat, but the white men threw themselves upon him and tore him off.
Flying Cloud reeled back, gazed a moment at Plummer, and then drew a knife.
"It was when there was war between us, and I will not swing at the end of the white man's rope," he said.
So speaking, he plunged the blade into his own heart and fell dead, almost at the feet of the woman whose kin he had slain.
"Whatever the red scoundrel was," said Hobart, later, "I shall always use the old text for him, and say that nothing in this life became him like the leaving of it."
But there were no such feelings in the heart of Sylvia Morgan. When "King" Plummer sprang upon Flying Cloud, Harley turned involuntarily to Sylvia, and he saw the pallor replaced by a sudden flush; then, when the chief slew himself with his own knife, the flush passed, and whiter than ever she sank down gently. But Harley caught her in his arms before she fell, and in a moment or two she revived. It seemed to be her first thought that she was held by him, and she struggled a little.
"Let me go," she said; "I can stand. I assure you I can. It was just a passing weakness."