More than this, they had been spurred, the blood marks still plainly visible, and one of them was branded; he remembered it now, a star and arrow.

What could all this portend?
Was it possible this attack was no Indian affair after all?
Was the disfiguring of bodies, the scalping, merely done to make it appear the act of savages?
Driven to investigation by this suspicion, he passed again over the trampled ground, marking this time every separate indentation, every faintest imprint of hoof or foot.

There was no impression of a moccasin anywhere; every mark remaining was of booted feet.

The inference was sufficiently plain--this had been the deed of white men, not of red; foul murder, and not savage war.
The knowledge seemed to seer Keith's brain with fire, and he sprang to his feet, hands clinched and eyes blazing.

He could have believed this of Indians, it was according to their nature, their method of warfare; but the cowardliness of it, the atrocity of the act, as perpetrated by men of his own race, instantly aroused within him a desire for vengeance.