The constable stooped down, dragged the body from her feet, and cast it headlong down the slope of earth on which she stood. Then, without a word, he seized Barbara by both her wrists, and grasped them together with a firm grip of one hand, while he searched in his pocket for a thong of deer-skin prepared for the occasion. Putting one end of the thong between his teeth, he wound the other tightly over her wrists--so tightly that the delicate hands grew purple to the finger ends. Then he finished his barbarous work with a double knot tightened with both hands and teeth. The outraged woman lifted her eyes to his face with a frightened look as he performed this brutal act, but she neither protested nor struggled; once she observed gently that he hurt her hands, but, when no heed was taken, allowed him to proceed without further remonstrance. When her hands were bound, the constable tore down her shawl from the entrance of the lodge and placed it on her shoulders, crossing it over her bosom and knotting it behind, thus forming a double thraldom for her arms. She bore it all patiently and in silence; once she cast an earnest look into the depths of the forest, perhaps with a hope that her savage friends might come to the rescue, but she only met the gleaming eyes of a wild-cat, swinging lazily on a bough to which human approach had driven him. Even there her glance was answered by a low growl and a gleam of savage teeth. The wild beasts were defying her in one direction, and human cruelty dragging her to death in another. Thus, helpless and unresisting, she was forced into the settlement again, bound like a criminal. She made neither protest nor resistance, but remained quietly in the hands of her captors, accepting her fate with touching resignation. CHAPTER XL. THE ACCUSERS OF BARBARA.