"If you only saw one!" said Rain's mind. "The dogs and the ponies can see. Why is this poor thing blinded by his conceit!"
"Humph!" said Rising Wolf. "Am I so bad as all that?"
"Your spirit-power," Rain answered, "is like a spent torch, which flickers, then smokes and then flares, nearly dead. Sun Spirit, help him!"
They were flashing southward, the sunset glow abreast upon their right, where violet cumuli, like mountain ranges, broke to reveal cirrii of molten ruby against clear orange sky. As they came down into the lower earth mist, that radiance glowed warmly upon the face of an adobe wall upon their left, with prickly pear bush on the parapet dark green against the upward sweep of the advancing night.
"We are in Mexico," said Rain.
In front of this wall facing the afterglow stood a long line of men on parade, at open intervals three feet apart. Ragged, unshaven, famished, they were gay with a forced cheerfulness, passing jokes one to another in derision of a group of officers, Mexicans.
"That general," said Rain, "is the wicked President Santa Ana. Years ago, in a dream like this, Storm saw him at the siege of Alamo, when Bowie, Travis, and so many heroes fell, and dear Davy Crockett."
The Mexican General Staff was attended by a squad of half-clad soldiers, who shuffled their dusty sandals, halting to order in front of each in turn of the American prisoners. To each of these captured filibusters, when his turn came, there was tendered a sack from which he was required to take one bean, and hold it up for inspection. If it proved to be a white bean, he lived. If it was a black bean, the firing party, moving in drill time, got ready, presented, loaded, fired, then left the quivering body in its blood, to shoulder arms, and march one full pace right in readiness for the next murder. The Americans were jeering at their uncouth movements.
"My man is here," said Rain. "Of course, they cannot see him. Look."
Amid the disheveled company Storm stood out clean. His golden mane and tawny dress looked crisp, fresh, strangely luminous, his face, from which the beard hairs had been plucked in the Indian manner, was that of a mighty chief, commanding, sternly beautiful as he stood wrapped in prayer. In his arms he held the prisoner next for death, supporting him. The fusillade rang out, and as the smoke cleared Rising Wolf saw the crumpled body sag down with that queer empty look he had noticed so often in men newly dead.