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He knelt beside him for a few seconds and made sure that his heart was beating before he rose to his feet. He looked out into the hall. The lamps had not been lighted probably that was one of the old Indian woman's duties. From the big room came a sound of voices and then, close to him, from the door across the way, there came a small trembling voice: "Hurry, Sakewawin! Lock the door and come!"
Her eyes were shining, and she was looking straight at David when Brokaw released his hand. "Good-night, Sakewawin!" she said. It was very distinct, that word Sakewawin! David had never heard it come quite so clearly from her lips. There was something of defiance and pride in her utterance of it and intentional and decisive emphasis to it.
She whispered again: "And you have never kissed me, Sakewawin. Why?" Slowly he drew her to him, until her head lay against his breast, her shining eyes and parted lips turned up to him, and he kissed her on the mouth. A wild flood of colour rushed into her face and her arms crept up about his shoulders. The glory of her radiant hair covered his breast.
The giant had stripped himself to the waist, and he stood for a moment looking at David, a monster with the lust of murder in his eyes. It was frightfully unequal this combat. David felt it, he was blind if he did not see it, and yet he was still unafraid. A great silence fell. Cutting it like a knife came the Girl's voice: "Sakewawin Sakewawin...." A brutish growl rose out of Brokaw's chest.
Despairingly she pointed to the mountain behind them. For a quarter of a mile it was a sheer wall of red sandstone. Their one way of flight lay downward, practically into the faces of their enemies. "I was going to rouse you before it was light, Sakewawin," she explained in a voice that was dead with hopelessness. "I kept awake for hours, and then I fell asleep.
And then the tribal chant of Wapi and his people grew nearer and louder as they passed into the forest, and with a choking cry the Girl drew back from David and stood facing him. "I must hurry," she said, swiftly. "Listen! They are going! Hauck or Brokaw will go as far as the lake with Wapi, and the one who does not go will return here. See, Sakewawin I have brought you a knife!
"Why tell them," she said. "Tell them what?" "That you've come for me, and that we're going away, Sakewawin." "And if they object? If Brokaw and Hauck say you cannot go?" "We'll go anyway, Sakewawin." "That's a pretty name you've given me," he mused, thinking of something else. "I like it."
She had come prepared with that knife! He felt the bonds snap, and before either had spoken she was at his back, and his hands were free. They were like lead. She dropped the knife then, and her hands were at his face dark with dry stain of blood, and over and over again she was calling him by the name she had given him Sakewawin.
The pupils of her eyes were big and dark as she looked up at him, quivering with the strain of the last great effort, and yet she tried to smile at him. "You may carry me some time but not down a mountain," she said, and laid her head wearily on the pillow of her arm, so that her face was concealed from him. "And now please get supper, Sakewawin."
If she had ever called any other man that name Sakewawin he would have killed him. Certain. Killed him dead. This was the first time she had ever called him that. Lucky dog? You bet he was. They'd go to his shack and talk. He drank a third time. He rolled heavily as they entered the hall, David praying that they would not meet Hauck. He had his victim. He was sure of him. And the hall was empty.
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