He did not know how dramatically he told it--how he etched it without a waste word.

When he came to that scene in the Fort, the three men sitting, targets for his bullets,--he softened the details greatly.

He did not tell it as he told it at the Court, but the simpler, sparser language made it tragically clear.

There was no sound from the bed, none from the foot-board, but he heard a door open and shut without, and footsteps somewhere near.
How he put the body in the tree, and prayed over it and left it there, was all told; and then he paused.

He turned a little sick as he saw the white face before him.