A Drift from Redwood Camp | Page 9

have arisen from
their recollection of his previous aversion to a retaliation on other
prisoners. Enough that they would wait his signal for the torture and
execution at sunrise the next day.
The night passed slowly. It is more than probable that the selfish and

ignoble torments of the sleepless and vacillating judge were greater
than those of the prisoner who dozed at the stake between his curses.
Yet it was part of Elijah's fatal weakness that his kinder and more
human instincts were dominated even at that moment by his lawless
passion for the Indian agent's wife, and his indecision as to the fate of
his captive was as much due to this preoccupation as to a selfish
consideration of her relations to the result. He hated the prisoner for his
infelicitous and untimely crime, yet he could not make up his mind to
his death. He paced the ground before his lodge in dishonorable
incertitude. The small eyes of the submissive Wachita watched him
with vague solicitude.
Toward morning he was struck by a shameful inspiration. He would
creep unperceived to the victim's side, unloose his bonds, and bid him
fly to the Indian agency. There he was to inform Mrs. Dall that her
husband's safety depended upon his absenting himself for a few days,
but that she was to remain and communicate with Elijah. She would
understand everything, perhaps; at least she would know that the
prisoner's release was to please her, but even if she did not, no harm
would be done, a white man's life would be saved, and his real motive
would not be suspected. He turned with feverish eagerness to the lodge.
Wachita had disappeared--probably to join the other women. It was
well; she would not suspect him.
The tree to which the doomed man was bound was, by custom, selected
nearest the chief's lodge, within its sacred enclosure, with no other
protection than that offered by its reserved seclusion and the outer
semicircle of warriors' tents before it. To escape, the captive would
therefore have to pass beside the chief's lodge to the rear and descend
the hill toward the shore. Elijah would show him the way, and make it
appear as if he had escaped unaided. As he glided into the shadow of a
group of pines, he could dimly discern the outline of the destined
victim, secured against one of the larger trees in a sitting posture, with
his head fallen forward on his breast as if in sleep. But at the same
moment another figure glided out from the shadow and approached the
fatal tree. It was Wachita!

He stopped in amazement. But in another instant a flash of intelligence
made it clear. He remembered her vague uneasiness and solicitude at
his agitation, her sudden disappearance; she had fathomed his
perplexity, as she had once before. Of her own accord she was going to
release the prisoner! The knife to cut his cords glittered in her hand.
Brave and faithful animal!
He held his breath as he drew nearer. But, to his horror, the knife
suddenly flashed in the air and darted down, again and again, upon the
body of the helpless man. There was a convulsive struggle, but no
outcry, and the next moment the body hung limp and inert in its cords.
Elijah would himself have fallen, half- fainting, against a tree, but, by a
revulsion of feeling, came the quick revelation that the desperate girl
had rightly solved the problem! She had done what he ought to have
done--and his loyalty and manhood were preserved. That conviction
and the courage to act upon it--to have called the sleeping braves to
witness his sacrifice--would have saved him, but it was ordered
otherwise.
As the girl rapidly passed him he threw out his hand and seized her
wrist. "Who did you do this for?" he demanded.
"For you," she said, stupidly.
"And why?"
"Because you no kill him--you love his squaw."
"HIS squaw!" He staggered back. A terrible suspicion flashed upon him.
He dashed Wachita aside and ran to the tree. It was the body of the
Indian agent! Aboriginal justice had been satisfied. The warriors had
not caught the MURDERER, but, true to their idea of vicarious
retribution, had determined upon the expiatory sacrifice of a life as
valuable and innocent as the one they had lost.
. . . . . .
"So the Gov'rment hev at last woke up and wiped out them cussed

Digger Minyos," said Snapshot Harry, as he laid down the newspaper,
in the brand-new saloon of the brand-new town of Redwood. "I see
they've stampeded both banks of the Minyo River, and sent off a lot to
the reservation. I reckon the soldiers at Fort Cass got sick o' sentiment
after those hounds killed