"Where is Mary?"
She rose and lifted the trap-door—it was unbolted—and went down.
The pale woman came to her, but she pushed her aside, and wiped her face with her sleeve.
"Are they killed? any of them?" she said. Her friend answered, "No, Mary, not one." "No harm this time," said the bearded man. "Except my house, it is burned," said the minister's wife. "We'll soon have another."
"I don't mean you! " cried the woman in black. "I mean them—red devils. Have you got any?—killed any? You "—this to Jim, who never missed a shot—"you"—this to the bearded man—"have you killed any?"
And the men answered, "No."
And one man said, "Their horses were faster than ours."
"Not one!" The woman in black drew herself up proudly. "Yes, one; better than killed. Wait." The women shrunk from her as she darted up the stair. They looked at each other wonderingly. The woman returned with something in her grasp. She flung it on the table. "It is an Indian's hand. His arm will shrivel to the bone. They will leave him some day to die in the sand." The women shuddered and drew back; the men crowded round, but they did not touch the hand.
"Are you afraid?" said the woman in black. "Afraid of that thing!"
She bent back the fingers and looked in it with a smile of contempt. Her face took an ashen hue: the hand struck the table edge and fell upon the floor. She seemed to be trying to think for a second, then she gave one awful cry, and leaned her face against the wall, with her hands hanging at her side.