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The great ada-wehi looked out at the night. On the whole he was glad he was dead!

He took no bite, nor did Digatiski. The Indian men were accustomed to long fasts in war and in hunting, and they left the trivial bits to the women. The muffled figure of grief held out her hand blindly and munched the share given her in the folds of her veil. Then, for tears are of no nutritive value, she held out her hand again. Feeling it still empty, she lifted the veil from a swollen tear-stained face to gaze aghast at the others. They silently returned the gaze, aghast themselves, and then all three women fell to sobbing once more. But the pappoose was crowing convivially over a bone.

Hunger does not dispose to slumber, nor does war with the sight of a dozen towns aflame. They slept, but in fitful starts, and the first gray siftings of light through the desolate darkness found them all gazing drearily at it, for what might a new day signify to them but new dangers, fresh sorrows, and quickened fears.

A flush was presently in the east, albeit dusk lingered westward. The wonderful crystalline white lustre of the morning star palpitated in the amber sky, seeming the very essence of light, then gradually vanished in a roseate haze. The black mountains grew purple, changing to a dark rich green. The deep, cool valleys were dewy in the midst of a shadowy gray vapor. The farthest ranges showed blue under a silver film, and suddenly here were the rays of the sun shooting over all the world, aiming high and far for the western hills.

And abruptly said the ada-wehi, as he still lay at length on the floor of the niche,–

“Skee!” (Listen!)

Naught but the breeze of morning, delicately freighted with the breath of balsams, the dew, the fragrance of the awakening of the wild flowers, the indescribable matutinal freshness, the incense of a new day in June.

“Skee!”

Only the sound of the rippling Tennessee, so silver clear, beating and beating against the vibrant rocks as its currents swirl round the bend at the base of the cliff.

“Skee!”

The sudden fall of a fragment of rock from the face of the crag to the ground far below!–the interval of time between the scraping dislodgment and the impact with the clay beneath implies a proportional interval of distance.

The conviction is the same in the mind of each. A living creature is climbing the ascent! A bear, it may be. A great bird, an eagle, or one of the hideous mountain vultures, very busy of late, alighting in quest of food–which it might find in plenty elsewhere, in the track of the invaders.

Attusah does not rely, however, on a facile hypothesis with a triumphant enemy at hand, and a dozen towns charring to ashes in sight.

As noiseless as a shadow, as swift, Attusah is on his feet. At the back of the great niche, so high that none could conceive that it might afford an exit, a fissure lets in a vague dreary blur of light from spaces beyond. Leaping high into the air, the lithe young warrior fixes his fingers on the ledge, crumbling at first, but holding firm under a closer grasp. The elder man, understanding the ruse as if by instinct, lays hold of the knees of the other, held out stiff and straight below. Then by a mighty effort Attusah lifts the double weight into the fissure, the elder Indian aiding the manoeuvre by walking up the wall, as it were, with his feet successively braced against it.

Outside, now and again bits of rock continued to fall, seeming to herald a cautious approach, for after each sound a considerable interval of silence would ensue. So long continued was this silence at last that the three women, now alone, began to deem the alarm of an intrusion vain and fantastic. The elder of them motioned to one of the others to look out and terminate the painful suspense.