it,” he repeated swiftly.  “Mr. Landor has been very good to me.  For his sake I would like to forgive what you have done, what you promise to do.  I have tried to forgive it; but I cannot.  I am an Indian; but I am also a man.  As a race your people have conquered my people, have penned them up in reservations to die; but that is neither your doing nor mine.  We are here as man to man.  As man to man you have offered me insult—­and without reason.”  For the first time a trace of passion came into the voice, into the soft brown face.  “I ask you to take back what you have just said.  I do not warn you.  If you do so, there is no quarrel between us.  I merely ask you to take it back.”

He halted expectant; but there was no answer, Craig’s lips were twitching uncontrollably, but he did not speak.

Just perceptibly the Indian shifted forward in his seat, just perceptibly the long brown fingers tightened on his pony’s mane.

“Will you not take it back?” he asked.

Once more the white man’s lip twitched.  “No,” he said.

“No?”

“No.”

That was all—­and it was not all.  For an instant after the Easterner had spoken the stars looked down on the two men as they were, face to face; then smiling, satiric they gazed down upon a very different scene:  one as old and as new as the history of man.  Just what happened in that moment that intervened neither the white man nor the red could have told.  It was a lapse, an oblivion; a period of primitive physical dominance, of primitive human hate.  When they awoke—­when the red man awoke—­they were flat on earth, the dust of the prairie in their nostrils, the short catch of their breath in each other’s ears, out one, the dark-skinned, was above.  One, again the dark-skinned, had his fingers locked tight on the other’s throat.  This they knew when they awoke.

A second thereafter they lay so, flaming eyes staring into their doubles; then suddenly the uppermost man broke free, arose.  In his ears was the diminishing patter of their horses’ hoofs.  They were alone there on the prairie, under the smiling satiric stars.  One more moment he stood so; he did not turn; he did not assist the other to rise; then he spoke.

“I do not ask your pardon for this,” he said.  “You have brought it upon yourself.  Neither do I ask a promise.  Do as you please.  Try what you have suggested if you wish.  I am not afraid.  Follow me,” and, long-strided, impassive as though nothing had happened, he moved ahead into the distance where in the window of the Buffalo Butte ranch house glowed a light.

CHAPTER VII

A GLIMPSE OF THE UNKNOWN