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It was a grim and grisly spectacle, for no form of torment from the nerve-wracking test of knife and tomahawk, arrow or bullet, aimed with intent to graze the flesh and not immediately to kill, to the ghastly ordeal of red-hot ramrods and blazing pine-root splinters thrust into the flesh or under the nails was omitted by those bloodthirsty red devils.
As Gabriel's voice fell to silence, after the last words, a stillness came upon the lamp-lit room, a hush broken only by the snapping of the pine-root fire on the hearth and by the busy ticking of the clock upon the chimneypiece. Then, after a minute's pause, Craig reached over and took Gabriel by the hand.
The weather turned colder and colder; it seemed worse than when the ground had been covered with snow. "Isn't this terribly cold? How I wish we had our stove-pipe brush-pile," said Rag. "A good night for the pine-root hole," replied Molly, "but we have not yet seen the pelt of that mink on the end of the barn, and it is not safe till we do."
He made his usual preparations for the chills and the thirst, but he added this by the side of his couch he put an old fish-spear the only weapon he could find, now the gun was useless a pine-root candle and some matches. He knew the Beast was coming back again was coming hungry. It would find no food; what more natural, he thought, than take the living prey lying there so helpless?
He struck a match and lighted his pine-root candle, held that in his left hand and in his right took the old fish-spear, meaning to fight, but he was so weak he had to use the fish-spear as a crutch. The great Beast stood on the table still, but was crouching a little as though for a spring. Its eyes glowed red in the torchlight.
The weather turned colder and colder; it seemed worse than when the ground had been covered with snow. "Isn't this terribly cold? How I wish we had our stove-pipe brush-pile," said Rag. "A good night for the pine-root hole," replied Molly, "but we have not yet seen the pelt of that mink on the end of the barn, and it is not safe till we do."
This, the pine-root hole, was afterward very coolly taken by a self-sufficient young skunk who with less valor might have enjoyed greater longevity, for he imagined that even man with a gun would fly from him. Instead of keeping Molly from the den for good, therefore, his reign, like that of a certain Hebrew king, was over in seven days.
"I suppose I ought," said Dick rather dolefully, for he was beginning to wake up to the fact of what an enormous deal there was in the world that he did not know. As he spoke, he picked up some of the red chips of the pine-root which had been sent flying by the strokes of the axe, to find that they were full of resin, smelling strongly of turpentine.
He kept his hold on the bag, and he kept his senses long enough to hook it onto a poor little stray pine-root above the water, where he died. It was a cruel death, but his face was good to look at." "And the telegram?" I asked. "It was safe. He'd saved everything, except himself. They were driven over to Colfax that night, with not a moment to spare " "But you haven't told me what it was."
He kicked together the embers that smouldered on the hearth of the Franklin stove, sitting down before it for his greater convenience, and, having put a fresh pine-root on the fire, fell into a doze, with his lantern in his hand. "Look here, young man!" said Bartley, shaking him by the shoulder, "you had better go out and put that colt up, and leave this sleeping before the fire to me."
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