Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1907-03-21
Continued from page ~

ing there n1otionless, with never a trenlOr,
no twitching of a muscle, his scornful eyes
following the deadly steel, his lips jeering
at the throwers, as he coolly played the
game whose stake was death.
4 dozen screaming squaws now hustled
forward the materials for a fire; I saw
branches, roots, and leaves, piled high
about his knees, and marked with a
shudder the film of blue smoke as it scared
upward ere the flame caught the green
wood. Then suddenly some one kicked
the pile over, hurting it into the faces of
those who stopped beside it; and the
fierce CIamor ceased as if by magic.
| staggered to my knees, wondering
what it could mean - this strange silence
after all the uproar Then I saw Out
from the shadows, as if she herself were
one, the strange girl who had been my
companion glided forward into the red
radius of the flame, and faced them, her
back to De Croix.
Never shall | fail to recall her as she
then appeared "a veritable goddess Of
light fronting the hends of darkness.
With cheeks 50 white as to seem touched
with death, her dark eyes glowed in con-
sciousness Of power, while her long,
sweeping tresses rippIed below her waist
cleaning in a wild red beauty almost
supernatural. How womanly she was,
how fairto look upon, and howunconsCious
Of aught save her mission, One hand she
held before her in imperious gesture Of
command; with the other she upIifted the
cruciix, until the silver Christ spanked in
the light
Back she said clearly. "Back!
You shall not torture this man. I know
him. He is a soldier OF France"
The word uttered by the strange woman
was one to conjure with even then in the
Illinois country. Many year had passed
since the French flag ruled those praries,
vet not a warrior there but knew how the
men Of that race avenged an injury II
how swift their stroke, how keen their
steel
| watched the startled throng press
closely backward, as il aWcd by her
mysterious presence, influenced insensibly
BY her tersc sentence Of command, each
duskv face a reflex Of its owners perpleXity.
Drunken as most of them were, Crazcd
with savage blood-lust and hours Of re-
morseless torture of their victims, for the
moment that sweet vision of wOmanly
purity held them motionless, as if indeed
the figure Of the Christ she uplifted before
their faces had taught them adherence
Of their crimes.
But is was not for long, To hundreds
:, ,n X n, nm
known white woman; while even to those
who knew her best, the Pottawattomies,
she appeared only as one who came to
balk them of their revenge. They may
have held her person invoIatc amid their
lodges, and even have ContenanCed her
strange teaching; but now she had ven
tured too far in attempting thus to stand
between them and their victim. They
held back a single moment, halted by her
fearlessne5s, rendered COWardly by vague
superstitions regarding her religious power;
but after the first breathlesS pause Of dumb
establishment and irrcsolution, voice after
voice arose in hoarse cries of rage and
shouts Of disapproval. There was a
surging forward of the Straining red line,
while | marked how she drew back as they
advanced, retreating step by step not,
indeed, as if she feared them, but rather
as if some definite purpose led her move
ment. Her eyes never wavered, her hand
still uplilted the cleaning cross, as she
retreated slowly, until she stood directly
before De Croix, where he hung helplessIy
staring at her with an expression OF fear
in his face strangely at variance with his
late show Of desperate courage.
Back" she cried again, but now in a