The Indian’s great size and strength were overwhelming with the other caught at a disadvantage. Then the man with the yellow eyes was fully two decades older. Usak was lithe, active as a wild cat, with all the bulk of a greater forest beast. Then there was his simple, terrible purpose.
It was done, finished in a few awful moments. A sound broke from the man underneath the Indian’s body. It was a half-stifled choking cry. It was inarticulate except that it was a cry of pain and suffering for which there could be no other expression. And instantly all struggling ceased.
The arms of the man underneath fell away. Usak leapt to his feet and his savage eyes glowered down on the writhing body on the ground. For a moment he watched the tortured creature, effortless except for the physical contortions of unspeakable suffering. And presently he heard the thing he had awaited. It was a faint, low moaning forced at last from between the blinded man’s stubbornly pressed lips.
Fierce, harsh words leapt in answer to the sound, and the Indian spoke out of the original savagery that was his.
“So! Euralian Chief!” he cried exultantly. “You not know all this you mak, or you not mak it so. No. I tell you this—I, Usak. You come kill my woman, Pri-loo. You kill my good boss, Marty Le Gros. You come to steal. But you not steal. Only you kill my woman, Pri-loo, an’ my good boss. So I, Usak, come. I kill up all the mans, everything. But not so I kill your woman. Not so I kill you. Oh, no. That for bimeby. Now I tak out your eyes. If I kill up your woman you die. No good. No. So I leave you your woman. She lie there by your son. She look this way now to see the thing I do. Bimeby she come. She forget the son I shoot all up. She remember only her man who will live in darkness. It good. It just how I think. Bimeby she come. She mak you live. She, your woman. She lead you by the hand. She feed you. She mak you see through her eyes. So you know the hell you show to me. Oh, yes. It black hell for you. No light no more. Your folk come. They find you. You not see them. Nothing. Then they go leave you. An’ so you live—in hell. Bimeby I come. Big long time I come. An’ when I come I kill you. I kill you an’ your woman all up dead, same as you kill my woman, Pri-loo. Now I go. I go an’ think, think, how I mak kill you—sometime.”
PART II
FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
CHAPTER I
PLACER CITY