One among the emigrants, a dark-eyed woman of about forty years of age, was of better position and education than the others.  One morning she noticed Susannah’s child very kindly, speaking of things that did not lie on the surface of life.

“There is a seeking look in his eyes,” the lady said; “he smiles, he plays with us all, but he looks beyond for something.  I have seen that look in the eyes of children who were in pain, but yours is at ease.”

“He has his father’s eyes,” Susannah sighed.  “My husband is always looking for a virtue that seems to me impossible.”

Both women turned toward an open grassy space in the midst of the clustered houses where Halsey was now standing, Bible in hand, teaching a little group of children to repeat the beatitudes.  Only four children, one sickly boy and three girls, were willing to stand and repeat the lesson; others had straggled away and were shouting at their play.

Not far from where Halsey stood some fifteen of the neighbours had gathered together to put up a new wooden house; piles of sweet-smelling deal lay about them as they worked.

Just then on the road from Far West a horse bearing an old man was seen straining itself to the swiftest gallop.  The old man began to shout as he came within hearing.  No one could understand what he said.  He shouted more loudly, and many women ran out of their doors to see his arrival.  Before his words were articulate a cloud of dust was seen rising round a turning of the same road, and a large company of horsemen came swiftly into view.

The old man’s voice was raised in a cry, but only the accent of terror was intelligible.  He threw himself off his horse, brandishing his arms.  Afterwards it was known that he wanted the villagers to take refuge in their houses, but now they only stared the more at him and at the small army that was approaching.

Susannah heard a shot; then she was deafened by the sound of a volley of muskets.  Paralysed, she stood staring down the road, unable to believe that the two or three hundred mounted men had deliberately levelled their muskets and fired.  Then all around her she became aware of shrieks and sobs and prayers that went up to God.  The brown-eyed Gentile lady who stood beside her had fallen in a curious attitude at her feet.

Susannah darted into the emigrants’ tent and, putting down the child, dragged the lady within.  She perceived to her horror that the lady was shot; the bullet had passed through her neck.  Not knowing whether she was dead or dying, Susannah stretched her on the floor.  Then she lifted her hands above her head, wrung them together in agony of nerve and thought.  She remembered afterwards looking upward in the cave of the warm tent and saying aloud “O God!  O God!” many times.

The first thing she saw was her child standing watching her; both his little brown fists were full of flowers.  Hearing the sound of horses trampling near, loud voices, and occasional shots, she bethought her that the canvas of the tent was no protection for the child, and, snatching him in her arms, she ran madly out into the sunshine and into the open war.