She raised her axe. The slender fingers touched the bolt and gently drew it back.

Then with the force of all her hatred fell the axe upon the wrist. The hand sprang up at her. With a howl of agony the creature fell bumping beneath.

Then all again was still.

Her face was wet and warm with the spattered blood.

Outside she heard the crackling of a burning house, then gunshots far away, and distant shouts. On tiptoe she went to the garret window, and peeped round its edge. Over the hills, quite near, she saw the men returning. One house was blazing—the minister’s. The Indians were retreating. Near her door, grazing, stood a riderless horse. She knew its owner. As they rode past, they caught at it, but were stopped by a shout from her door. An Indian rushed out, handsome, young, holding aloft a bare right arm without a hand. In his language he shrieked to them for revenge, pointing up with his red wrist to the attic where she stood.

The eyes of the woman shot fire. She leaned far out and shook her fist from the garret window.

“One Indian at least!”

She hurled the axe at them. It fell far short. They fired as they passed, but none hit her. Nearer came the men.

The wounded man leaped to his horse and with a curse rode on. The woman laughed as he passed beneath, then sat down in the dusky loft with a red pool at her feet.

Shortly the men returned. Some went by down the hill, after the Indians. Others put out the fire. All was confusion, bustle, shouts.

Then the women and the children came and added to the din, and the men who had followed returned. But the woman in black sat alone in the loft, till she heard the crowd at her door below, and the voice of the pale woman say:

“Where is Mary?”

She rose and lifted the trap-door—it was unbolted—and went down.

The pale woman came to her, but she pushed her aside, and wiped her face with her sleeve.

“Are they killed? any of them?” she said. Her friend answered, “No, Mary not one.” “No harm this time,” said the bearded man. “Except my house, it is burned,” said the minister’s wife. “We’ll soon have another.”

“I don’t mean you!” cried the woman in black. “I mean them—red devils. Have you got any?—killed any? You”—this to Jim, who never missed a shot—“you”—this to the bearded man—“have you killed any?”

And the men answered, “No.”

And one man said, “Their horses were faster than ours.”

“Not one!” The woman in black drew herself up proudly. “Yes, one; better than killed. Wait.” The woman shrunk from her as she darted up the stair. They looked at each other wonderingly. The woman returned with something in her grasp. She flung it on the table. “It is an Indian’s hand. His arm will shrivel to the bone. They will leave him some day to die in the sand.” The women shuddered and drew back; the men crowded round, but they did not touched the hand.