It was afternoon. Most of the inmates of the camp were recruiting themselves after their night of watching and the exciting events of the morning's conflict. A few drowsy snores, or now and then the puling cry of some child within the waggons, or perchance the clatter of pots and pans, as one or two of the women were cleaning up the culinary implements which had served for the morning meal; these were the only sounds which broke the slumbrous stillness. Stretched upon the turf about fifty yards outside the corral, puffing lazily at an Indian pipe, lay Vipan. He alone of all there present seemed to feel no need of slumber. The dash and excitement of the conflict over, a strange reaction had set in. There was a look upon his face as of a man who, turning back upon the chapters of his own history, finds the reminiscences therein recorded the reverse of pleasant. It was also the look of one who is undergoing a new experience, and a disquieting one. A light step on the grass behind him. "Are you really made of cast-iron, Mr Vipan?" "H'm, why so, Miss Santorex?" "Because everyone else is snoring like the Seven Sleepers, and you, who have had as trying a time of it as any three of the rest put together, are still wide awake." "I might say the same of you. You, too, have been awake all night." "Oh, dear no; nothing like it. And now--and now we are alone, I want really to thank you as I ought, but--but--I don't know how," broke off the girl, with a comic ruefulness that was inexpressibly bewitching. "Really, though, I never was further from joking in my life. Now that I have seen what those dreadful savages are like, I seem to realise what a frightful fate you saved me from," she added earnestly, with a lovely flush. "Let us talk of something else," he answered, somewhat abruptly. "You showed extraordinary grit during the recent little unpleasantness between us and our red brothers. May I ask where, when, and how you served your apprenticeship as an Indian fighter?" She laughed and gave a slight shiver. Now that they were over, the appalling experiences of the early morning could not but tell upon her. She was rather pale, and dark circles round her eyes told of an apprehensive and restless night. "Poor Mrs Winthrop is quite ill this morning, and no wonder. I hope we shall have no more of those frightful experiences. And yet, to look round the camp no one would suspect that anything out of the way had happened." Vipan followed her glance. He was glad that all traces of the bloody struggle had been removed--the dead bodies, including that of the unfortunate emigrant who had been scalped, had been buried while the terrified and worn-out women were sleeping the slumber of exhaustion.