It swelled mournfully on the
air, and died away. The doomed man heard it. He raised his ghastly
face; his dulled senses seemed to revive. He gazed at the stiffening
bodies of the Indians, at the gory corpse of Deering, at the savage
eyes of the dog.
Suddenly life seemed to surge strong within him.
"Hell's fire! I'm not done fer yet," he gasped. "This damned knife
can't kill me; I'll pull it out."
He worked at the heavy knife hilt. Awful curses passed his lips, but
the blade did not move. Retribution had spoken his doom.
Suddenly he saw a dark shadow moving along the sunlit ground. It
swept past him. He looked up to see a great bird with wide wings
sailing far above. He saw another still higher, and then a third. He
looked at the hilltop. The quiet, black birds had taken wing. They
were floating slowly, majestically upward. He watched their graceful
flight. How easily they swooped in wide circles. He remembered that
they had fascinated him when a boy, long, long ago, when he had a
home. Where was that home? He had one once. Ah! the long, cruel
years have rolled back. A youth blotted out by evil returned. He saw
a little cottage, he saw the old Virginia homestead, he saw his
brothers and his mother.
"Ah-h!" A cruel agony tore his heart. He leaned hard against the
knife.
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