The Indian kept the shaft to one side while he diligently prodded the reptiles with the willow. When he had enraged them so that they began to strike blindly at each other and at themselves, he lowered the shaft and let them drive their fangs into the meat. And when they were spent with their anger and springing, he covered the box and held up the flesh, which had turned from red to green, and was dripping dark with venom. Then, into it, he began thrusting the points of a quiver of arrows. CHAPTER XXXI BY THE LIGHT OF A MATCH A smudge was burning at the centre of the stockade. In its lee, to be safe from the swarms of pestering mosquitoes, sat the hostage braves. Their pipe-smoke blended with the smoke of the fire. Their loud gibberish was broken only when shrieks of laughter followed a sally of wit. Their black eyes sparkled. Their white teeth flashed. Before them were their sons, now romping with the favoured dogs of the pack; now gathering to watch a wrestling-match between a chosen couple; again, lining the way while several raced down the enclosure. The squaws and girls were also outside the lodges, the July night being hot. They cackled together to the windward side of the lordly males, and did not approach except to throw more wet sticks upon the smoulder. The outcast watched the jollity from his dark corner, and marvelled at it. For were there not two tragedies threatening, either of which should, properly, lay hard upon the hearts of the village? One was the nearing execution of the four condemned. Two sleeps ago, on the arrival of a runner from the absent cavalry, a wood-wagon had hauled several loads of lumber to the site of the pony corral. From that lumber--it was said openly, and he had told it in sign-language to the braves, was to be built--_a scaffold_! The other tragedy hovered in the illness of Brown Mink. Since her lodge had been placed against the upper curve of the pen, there had been much singing, conjuring, dancing and beating of drums. But to no purpose. Daily, she wasted. She was dying! He was not allowed to see her, to tend her fire or clean her kettle. When, on her removal, he had dared to stop at her tent-flap with a string of pike, Afraid-of-a-Fawn swooped down upon him, her long tushes clicking and frothing, snatched the wall-eyes from his hold and belaboured him with them. He had not gone back. But, in secret, he grieved over Brown Mink's suffering. And often he petitioned in her behalf, and lifted his worshipping vine toward the Milky Way. In his sorrow, his shoulders were bent lower than ever, his ebon eyes were more doglike. Yet, he still dreamed of reinstatement, for he saw (though he could not understand it) that the warriors were again counting on escape!