Scarcely had her voice ceased, leaving me struggling to find fit words to change her mad decision, when a rough hand flung back the entrance flap, and the naked body of an Indian, framed for a single instant against the light, lurched heavily through the opening.  Even that brief glimpse told me the man had been drinking to excess; while for the moment, as I huddled down closer behind my robes, I was unable to make out his identity.

“Where white woman?” he ejaculated gruffly, as he paused, blinded by the darkness.  “Why she not come help me?”

His quick ear evidently caught the slight rustle of the girl’s skirt as she rose hastily to her feet, for with a muttered Indian oath the savage lurched forward.  I could scarcely make out the dimmest shadow of them in the dense gloom, yet I seemed to know that he had grasped her roughly, though not the slightest sound of fear or pain came from her lips.

“Ugh! better come!” he muttered, a veiled savage threat growling in his tone.  “You my squaw; cook in my lodge; get meal now.”

“But where? and how?” she asked, her voice trembling perceptibly, yet striving to placate him by a seeming willingness to obey.  “I have nothing here to cook, nor have I fire.”

“Indian squaw no talk back!” he retorted angrily.  “This way I show white squaw to mind chief!”

I heard plainly the brutal blow he struck her, though even as she reeled back she managed to stifle the scream upon her lips, so that it was barely audible.  With one bound I was over the barrier of robes and clutching with tingling fingers for the brute.  I touched his feathered head-dress at last, and he must have supposed me his helpless victim, for with a grunt of satisfaction he struck once again, the blow meeting my shoulder, where he judged in the dark her face would be.

“White squaw mind now—­”

I had him gripped by the throat before he ended, and we went down together for a death-struggle in the darkness, from which each realized in an instant both could never rise again.  My furious grip sobered him, and he made desperate efforts to break free, struggling vainly to utter some cry for rescue.  Once I felt him groping at his waist for a knife; but I got first clasp upon its hilt, though I twisted helplessly for some minutes before I could loosen his hold at my wrist so as to strike him with the blade.  His teeth closed upon my hand, biting deep into the flesh like a wildcat, and the sharp sting of it yielded me the desperate strength I needed to wrench my hand free, and with one quick blow the knife I clutched cut deep into his side, so that I could feel the hot blood spurt forth over my hand.  I held him in a death grip, for I knew a single cry meant ruin to all our plans, until the last breath sped, and I knew I lay prostrate above a corpse.  It had been so swift and fierce a contest that I staggered half-dazed to my feet, peering about me as if expecting another attack.  I was steadied somewhat by the sound of a low sob from the darkness.