What if I did do so? Was I not maddened with the long siege I had endured? Was I not wild from my lengthy imprisonment on the mound, and eager upon the work of death? Suddenly, one of their horses stumbled and fell. Its rider was thrown under the body of the fallen animal. With a wild scream of delight, I urged my own steed up to them. When I did so, the other Indian had dismounted, and was standing between me and the fallen red-skin, in a queenly and defiant posture. It was a Mahala. "The white chief has killed the husband of Clo-ke-ta. Let him now, if he wills it, take the life of her father." Par-a-wau was stretched upon the dry earth, crushed under the motionless body of the animal he had been riding. For a moment, I gazed upon the two. My brain seemed to whirl in a wild dance, as I did this. Then it was stilled, and, without a word of reply, I leapt from the back of my horse. With some little difficulty I extracted the Cheyenne chief from beneath the dead body of the animal he had been mounted upon. The gallant little beast had been stricken, earlier, by one of our balls. It had passed through its hind quarter. Yet, in spite of the loss of blood and the weakness gradually growing on it from this, it had carried the Cheyenne thus far. Although bruised severely by the fall, when I raised him, Par-a-wau was able to stand erect. Neither of us spoke. He, very evidently, supposed that it was my intention to make him a prisoner. In all probability, he had too much Indian pride to make any entreaty. Very possibly, he believed white blood might run in as hard veins as that of the red-skin. I led my own horse toward him. "Will Par-a-wau mount the horse of his brother?" Without a word of answer, he obeyed me. Then, I raised his rifle, which was still upon the ground, and placed it in his hands. After this, I turned to the Mahala. She had been standing motionless, watching every movement which I had made. Touching her widowed brow with my parched lips, dry and smeared as they were with the grime of battle, I lifted her into the saddle of her pony, which had been standing near us, saying: "Clo-ke-ta will sometimes think of the brother who has never forgotten her!" As I quitted her side, I heard the same cry of anguish, which had been uttered by her, when I refused to obey her counsel and fly from the men with whom my lot was at the moment cast. My heart throbbed fiercely, yet I would not turn to her. Haply, she was thinking of the husband whom I had slain--perchance, she may momentarily have recalled the long-quelled dream of her youth. What was it to me what she was thinking of? Resolutely, I commenced my return.