Another day went by, but as the time of evening drew near there came the sound of camp-breaking down the wind. A host of armed men tramped beside the cave. A group of doctors, attired in the fantastic mummery of their craft, followed; and last of all came Oskelano and his brother side by side. Around a solitary poplar men were at work, chopping down the brush with their tomahawks. The guard stepped up upon either side of Woodfield, who watched these preparations with a prisoner's suspicions, and led him out to the cleared space. "Um," grunted Oskelano, and shook hands amiably with his victim. Then the men put aside their tomahawks and bound him to the poplar with ropes of vegetable fibre. They piled the moss around him and flung the sagebrush atop. Others brought up pine branches and piled them waist high. Oskelano watched, his crafty face wrinkled with smiles. At last the Englishman understood that he was about to be made a sacrifice to the fierce Algonquin gods. He uttered no useless prayer and made no cry. "They have spared me the torture," he muttered bravely. "Let me now show them how to die." As the silent and supple natives worked around him, he recalled the tales that old men at home had told him, of the Protestants who had died for their faith, laughing at the flames and bathing their hands in them. The last scene in the life of the old vicar of Hadleigh had often as a boy moved him to tears. He remembered how that the old man had lighted from his horse to dance on his way to the stake, and he recalled his noble words of explanation: "Now I know, Master Sheriff, I am almost at home." The passing into death through fire was merely a sting sudden and sharp. Water was dashed over the fuel until the pile gleamed frostily in the fading rays. A fiery death for his captive was no part of Oskelano's plan. He had discovered that suffocation was more effective and less rapid than the flames. Tree and victim became soon hidden in a dense column of cloud, the doctors resumed their march, the guard followed, the two sachems brought up the rear, discussing their proposed attack as indifferently as though that mighty pillar of smoke pouring upward in the still evening air out of the plain of sage-brush had no existence in fact. Well-laid as was the cruel Algonquin's plan, he had not the wisdom to guard against that element of the improbable which rarely fails to enter into, and mar the working of, the best-contrived plot. A maid had concealed herself in the bush until the camp became clear. Then she came forth and ran like the wind, but stopped upon the plain with a cry of terror when she beheld an old man, who hobbled painfully through the brush. The ancient turned, suspicious of every sound, but when he saw the girl his dry face broke into a weird smile. "Hasten, child," he quavered, leaning heavily upon his staff. "The Mother of God forgets not the good done by man or maid."