The crowd of whirling centaurs seems to give way before him, and with his eye upon his goal he spurs between their ranks. But a roar of mocking laughter greets his ears. The canvas curtains of the waggon-tilt part, and a great savage, hideously painted, springs forth, uttering an exultant whoop as he brandishes something in the air. It is a scalp--the blood trickling freely down the long, shining, silky tress. The whoop dies in the Indian's throat. Winthrop's ball has sped true. His wife's slayer falls heavily, still grasping in the locked grip of death the relic of the murdered victim. Yet, grim as it may seem, the murderer really deserves the gratitude of both. Then a thumping blow on the arm sends his pistol flying out of his hand. "How! white Colonel," says a gruff voice at his side. "How! Crow-Scalper big chief. White scalp damn better nor `chuck.' How?" Grinning with delight, the gigantic warrior extended his hand in the most friendly fashion; with difficulty curbing the plunges of his excited steed. He felt sure of his prey now. Not yet. Quick as thought, Winthrop had whipped out another pistol--a Derringer. But for a timely swerve, Crow-Scalper would have been sent straight to his fathers. Then thinking things had gone far enough, the chief pointed his revolver and shot the unfortunate Englishman dead. It was all over in a moment--the firing and the din, the shrieks of tortured women, the dying groans of mortally-wounded men--over in an infinitely shorter time than it takes to narrate. Not a man was left alive; and already many a corpse lay where it had fallen, stripped and gory, a hideous mangled object in the barbarous mutilation which it had undergone. Some of the Indians were busy looting the waggons. Others, scattered far and wide over the plain, were in pursuit of the fleeing animals, which had stampeded in every direction. All were in the wildest degree of excitement and exultation. They had mastered the outfit at a stroke, with the loss of only three warriors. They had wiped out their former defeat, and had reaped a rich harvest of scalps. They accordingly set to work to make merry over their plunder. Over the worst of what followed we will draw a veil. There were females in that doomed waggon train. Where these are concerned the red man, in his hour of victory, is the most brutal, the most ungovernable fiend in the world. Singing, dancing, feasting, whooping, the barbarians kept up their hideous orgie. Then in furtherance of a new amusement a number of them began to pile together the beams and planks of the wrecked waggons until a huge heap was formed, in shape something like a rough kiln. Up to this structure were dragged about a dozen bodies. Dead bodies? No; living.