A moment later he was moving with rapid strides in the direction of the battle-ground. A hard light was shining in his steady eyes, his jaws were sternly set. All feeling of the moment before had passed. The gray of dawn was spreading over the eastern sky. His nightmare was over. There was only left for him the execution of those plans he had so carefully worked out during the long days of preparation.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HARVEST OF BATTLE
The sun rose on a scene of great activity. It was the garnering of the harvest of battle. The light of day smiled down on this oasis on a barren foreshore of Bell River and searched it from end to end. It was so small in the immensity of its surroundings. Isolated, cut off from all outside help, it looked as though a deep breath of the Living Purpose of Life must have swept it away like some ant heap lying in the path of a thrusting broom. Yet it had withstood the shock of battle victoriously, and those surviving were counting the harvest.
But there was no smile in the heart of man. A hundred dead lay scattered on the foreshore. They congested the defences of the camp. They had even breathed their last agony within the precincts which they had sought to conquer. Mean, undersized, dusky-skinned, half-nude creatures sprawled everywhere, revealing in their attitudes something of that last suffering before the great release. Doubtless the price had been paid with little enough regret, for that is the savage way. It was for their living comrades to deplore the loss, but only for the serious depletion of their ranks.
The victorious defenders had no thought beyond the blessings of the harvest. They had no sympathy to waste. These dead creatures were so much carrion. The battle was the battle for existence which knows neither pity nor remorse.
So the dead clay was gathered and thrown to its last rest on the bosom of the waters, to be borne towards the eternal ice-fields of the Pole, or lie rotting on barren, rock-bound shores, where only the cries of the wilderness awaken the echoes. There was no reverence, no ceremony. The perils of existence were too near, too real in the minds of these men.
With the last of the human sheaves disposed of the real work of the day began under the watchful eyes of the leaders. The garrison was divided in half. One-half slept while the other half labored at the defences. Only the leaders seemed to be denied the ease of body their night's effort demanded. Picks and shovels were the order of the day, and all the shortcomings of the defences, discovered during battle, were made good. The golden "pay dirt" which had drawn the sweepings of Leaping Horse into the service of John Kars was the precious material of salvation.
The fortifications rose on all sides. The river front was no longer neglected. None could say whence the next attack would come. None could estimate for sure the subtleties of the bastard white mind which had so long successfully manipulated the secret of Bell River.