And the man they could have murdered for came from the house, an unheroic figure with suspenders dangling and a corncob pipe in his mouth, sullen, angry, and withal abjectly frightened, as mere man inevitably is when he sniffs a woman’s battle in the air. The bride, at sight of her husband, took to hysterics. She wept, she laughed, and down tumbled her hair. She felt the situation demanded a scene. Rodney, with a marital brevity hardly to be expected so soon, commanded Sally to go into the house and to “shut up.” Then he faced Singing Stream and said to her in her own language: “You must go away from here. The pale-faced woman is my wife by the white man’s law—ring and Bible. No Indian marriage about this.” But the brown woman only pointed to Judith. She asked Rodney had she not been a good squaw to him. And Rodney, who at best was but a poltroon, could only repeat: “You got to keep away from here. It’s the white man’s law—one squaw for one man.” From within came the sound of Sally’s lamentation as she called for her father and brother to take her from the squaw and contamination. Warren Rodney was a man of few words. It had become his unpleasant duty to act, and to act quickly. He snatched Judith from her mother and took her into the house, and he returned with his Winchester, which was not loaded, to Singing Stream. “You got to go,” he said, and levelling the Winchester, he repeated the command. Singing Stream looked at him with the dumb wonder of a forest thing. “I was a good squaw to you,” she said; and did not even curse him. And turning, she ran towards the foot-hills, with all the length of purple calico trailing.