After tracking down the Englishmen, watching them in the fall of the snow, enduring every privation until she had learnt their strength, she had gone at full speed to the settlement, madly hoping even then that La Salle might look on her with favour, despite her branded cheeks and mutilated face. His reward was to give her over to the soldiers, who had mocked her because she was of the hated race, a savage in their eyes, and had bound her with a rope and scourged her with the end of it, and had even struck her with their fists when she halted from exhaustion, and would have stabbed her to death had she refused to obey. Thus she received her full reward. And now she could do no more. Neuralgic pains coursed through her head, until the weight of her hair became a torment. Feverishly she sucked a handful of snow, but the awful thirst remained unquenched. The sounds of the chase entered her ears dimly from that half-lit region ahead, until drowsiness passed into her body, and her head dropped, and her eyes closed, and the sleep which moves imperceptibly into death came upon her. Her passionate heart lowered its beat, her pulses throbbed more sluggishly, as she drew close to the threshold which separates life and its object from the world of dreams. Her body collapsed, her head slid down; the soft snow sucked her in like quicksand. A figure passed among the slim terebinth columns. Though the sleeper had brought down her father into dishonour, had betrayed her tribe, and called the shadow of death across the home of her kindred, her sister had not forgotten her. The figure approached, bent over the huddled shape, and shook it roughly back to life. "Tuschota!" muttered the girl, as her eyes opened upon the immobile brown face. "Rise," said the woman. "Lean on me, and I will take you to my hut." "Leave me here," moaned Onawa. "I would lie until the great sleep comes." "I am your sister. I may not leave you thus to die. Yonder food awaits you, and drink, and the warmth of burning logs." She assisted Onawa to rise. The girl staggered and clung with dead hands. Together they passed down the slope, and so came to the cabin cunningly hidden amid snowy bush. A fire burnt redly, and hard by stood a stone vessel filled with rice-water. Towards this Onawa reached her hands, with the cry: "I am tortured with thirst." Without a word her sister gave her drink, and watched her while she gulped at the tepid liquor. Suddenly she put out her hand, and grasped the vessel, saying: "See! I have meat ready for you." Onawa partook of the food like a famished beast, and as strength returned the former love of life awoke, and she longed to go forth to renew the hopeless quest; but she felt her sister's eyes reading her thoughts, and presently she heard that sister's voice: "It is good to live, Onawa." She made no reply, but leaned forward, thrusting her hands against the scarlet wood.