"And if they kill me first," he added impressively, yet quite calmly. "If they kill me first, you must seize that pistol and shoot yourself. Else, they will slow torture you to death. Shoot yourself—in the head—just here."
He pushed back his hat and pressed the white part of his forehead with a finger that was as steady as if he had been merely telling of a moment of past peril instead of acting in one that was terribly immediate.
Maple Leaf's hand was hardly less steady than his own as she moved the shining weapon to a position more exactly between them.
"Good-bye, then, Sergeant—Sergeant Silk," she murmured. "It will be good—I shall be proud—to die in company with a brave man."
"Good-bye!" he responded lightly, turning from her and seating himself on a dog mound with his carbine across his knees.
The band of Indians still held off at a distance of fully a thousand yards. Silk could see them slowly and very deliberately forming behind their chief, only waiting for the signal to dash off in their headlong race.
Then suddenly there was a wild barbaric shriek as they broke away with a confused turmoil of whoops and yells and the quick patter of horses' hoofs that made the ground throb and sent up a swirl of dust.
On and on they came in their swooping charge, their shrill cries rending the air, their feathers fluttering, their trappings flying, their weapons held aloft as their ponies plunged forward at full racing stretch.
It seemed as if nothing could stop or divert their onward rush. It was like a resistless hurricane sweeping down straight for the dog town where the quiet man in the red coat was waiting with the girl crouched beside him.
Sergeant Silk cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and went down on one knee. He did not yet raise his gun, although many of the warriors had opened a random fire and little spurts of dust and grass were beginning to show where the bullets were falling. He waited very calmly, knowing the habits of the Indians—knowing that although they fight hard and fiercely for their lives when cornered they shrink from riding full tilt into the fire of a well-aimed rifle.