“Susie, where’s Charlie Jackson?”

She jerked her thumb back toward the flag pole and twisted away.

“All right!  Now we’ll make for the pole, Lydia, get behind me and put your arms round my waist.  Hang on, for heaven’s sake.”

Lydia did hang on for a few moments.  But the flight was now developing into a free for all fight.  And before she knew just how it happened, Lydia had fallen and feet surged over her.

She buried her face in her arms.  It seemed an age to her before Billy had snatched her to her feet.  In reality she was not down for more than two minutes.  Billy swung her against his chest with one arm and swung out with his other, shouting at Indians and whites alike.

“You damned beasts!  You dirty damned beasts.”

Lydia, bruised and shaken, clung to him breathlessly, then cried, “Go ahead, Billy!”

He glanced down at her and saw a streak of blood on her forehead.  His face worked and he began to sob and curse like a madman.

“They’ve hurt you, the hellhounds!  I’ll kill somebody for this.”

Kicking, striking with his free arm, oaths rolling from his lips, he burst through the crowd and rushed Lydia to the free space about the flagpole where Charlie Jackson stood coolly watching the proceedings.

Billy shook his fist under the Indian’s nose.

“Get down there and call the pack off or I’ll brain you.”

Jackson shrugged his shoulders, calmly.  “Let ’em have their fun.  It’s their last blowout.  I hope they do kill Levine and Marshall.”

Lydia pulled herself free of Billy.  Her voice was trembling, but she had not lost her head.

“Call them off, Charlie.  It’ll just mean trouble in the end for all of you if you don’t.”

Charlie looked at Lydia closely and his voice changed as he said, “You got hurt, Lydia?  I’m sorry.”

“Sorry!  You damned brute!” raved Billy.  “I tell you, call off this row!”

The two young men glared at each other.  Afterglow and firelight revealed a ferocity in Billy’s face and a cool hatred in Charlie’s that made Lydia gasp.  The shouting of the mob, the beating of the drum was receding toward the road.  The flag snapped in the night wind.

Billy put his face closer to Charlie’s.  The muscles of his jaw knotted and his hands clenched and unclenched.

“Call it off!” he growled.

Charlie returned Billy’s stare for a long moment.  Then sullenly, slowly, he turned and threw out across the night a long, shrill cry.  He gave it again and again.  At each repetition the noise of the mob grew less, and shortly panting, feverish-eyed bucks began to struggle into the light around the pole.

Then, without a word, Billy led Lydia away.  The Indians passing them shook their bows at them but they were unmolested.

“Can you walk, Lydia?  Do you think you’re badly hurt?” asked Billy.