Tombstone epitaph., 1917-05-06
CHAPTER xv.
On Wildcat Creek.

I
 to David and left him without hope
 or aim or wish for life One of the ! Indian prisoners told the horrible
 story of her death to his captors. with
 gleam of fiendish malevolence in his
 eyes
 David shuddered as he had not | among all the carnage Of battle, and
 his limbs tottered beneath him. Some
 one of the soldiers raised up his rife
 and struck down the boaster as if he
 were crushing a snake. No one held
 back his hand.
 One. with awkward sympathy, put his hand on the shoulder of the
 shaken David and led him back to the
 American camp. Behind them the
 ruined village lay smoldering in the ! November sun; but David himself
 walked as in a dream. Men who met
 him stepped aside in silence, to let
 him pass. daring to ask no question.
 Behind him rose the wailing of the
 Indian women, mourning for their dead, wailing among the trampled
 maize; and the unutterable sorrow in
 his heart grew heavier beneath their
 intending lamentation as the stalks of corn are beaten to the sodden ground
 in the cold rains of the dying year.
 Mechanically he took up his work of | watching over the wounded in the heavy wagons. The camp was struck, the homeward journey begun.
 The suffering of the men in the
 
 Over the uneven ground the oxen dragged the numbering carts, the wooden disks that served as wheels slipping and jolting over rocks and into ditches with a cruelty which was no less heartrending because it was unavoidable. The carts were spring. less. Hot with fever under the icy wind and racked with the terrific jolt ing, the wounded men rayed, cursed, sang in delirium. Of the 1j1 wounded. 25 died on the merciless journey from the battlefield to the blockhouse on the Vermiiion river, where the boats had been left. Day and night David heard their pitiful moaning. the snatches of pleadings, the impreca- tons and the incoherent wanderings of their tortured minds:
 "A tubful of honey in the lean-to and the bear got it"-"That ball went through the hoop"-"Make the stock ade higher"-"From Kaskasky with Georgie Clark, tell ye'-"The An gel Gabriel set his feet on those stones"-''That calf's got the milk sick"-"No, dearie, there ain't no more meaT'-"Teacher, may I get a fresh quilF-"Im a old man an l want some whisky"-"All the Federalists' Scheming'-"Water, aint there even some rainwaterE-"Oh, Molly, Molly. l Molly "-"Watch the right flank. The | right flank !'-"Water! Water"
 Three miles below Tippecanoe the l fleeing Prophet made a nights camp | on Wildcat creek, the Panse Pichou ] of the French. Dubois scouts found | the warm ashes of his campfire there | and close by one of the guides picked | up bit of lace. The man put it in | the pocket of his shirt and brought 1t | pack to the marching column. David l was among the men who crowded | about him to gaze at the tiny shred | Of cloth; and having seen 1t he put | out ms hand and took 1t, and no man | said him no; for they saw that he | had recognized it as a part of a gar. ment Of Antoinette O'BannOn, whom he had loved and who was slain. VII lngly the man who had found the cloth led David, at his request, back to the ashes of the fire and there left him in silence; and for a long time David stood looking at the ground where Toinette's feet last had been.
 The frozen wilderness was very still The bare branches of the forest creaked and groaned in the November gusts, but there was no sound of hu- sran life. On a dead limb a mottIed woodpecker with scarlet cap searched industriously and vainly for It's food. sleek, brown-furred bea- yer crawled to the top of the streams bank. looked inquiringly at the mo- dohiess figure breeding over the ashes of the fire, and slid back into the wa ter with splash. Deep in the woods flock of wild turkeys clucked among he uIide rbrush. And so standing. Da- rid tasted to the dregs the bitterness 'f his failure, the numbing conscious ness of irremediable loss; tasted the bitterness of helpless defeat and spent his hour of agony and vain self 'eproach, while the grim forest shut Jim in with silence.
 A rife cracked.
 The ball knocked the cap from Da- ids head An inch to the right and ie would have fallen, his skull shat i cred; but he had bent his head at , he very moment when the hidden , finger pressed the trigger.
 He was all alone; only his own [ peed and quickness of resource saved , jim.
 (To BE coNTINUED)