The limp drooping of his head made me think him already unconscious, possibly dead from some chance fatal blow; but as the flames burst out in a roar at his feet, and shot up, red and glaring, to his waist, he gave utterance to one terrible cry of agony, and it seemed to me I gazed fairly into his tortured eyes and could read their pitiful appeal.
Twice I raised my rifle, the sight upon his heart,--but durst not fire.
No consideration of my own peril held back the pressure of the trigger,--'twas the remembrance of Mademoiselle.

It was beyond my strength of will to withstand such strain long.
"Come," I groaned to De Croix, my hands pressed tightly over my eyes to shut out the sight, "it will craze us both to stay here longer, nor dare we aid the poor fellow even by a shot." He lay face downward on the soft mud of the bank, and I had to shake him before he so much as moved.

We crept on together, until we came out through the thick bushes into the open prairie, and faced each other, our lips white and our bodies shaking with the horror of what we had just seen.
"Mon Dieu!" he faltered, "'twill forever haunt me." "It has greatly undone me," I answered, striving to control my voice, for I felt the necessity of coolness if I hoped to command him; "but if we would save her from meeting a like fate, we must remain men." "Then, for God's sake, find some spot where I may rest for an hour," he urged.

"My brain seems reeling, and I fear it will give way it I remain in sight or sound of such horrors." In spite of all I had seen, it was still my desire to creep in among the deserted lodges while darkness shrouded the outermost of them; but I felt that some safe hiding-place must first be found for my companion.

To attempt to take him with me while in such a nervous state would be only to invite disaster.
"De Croix," I asked, "know you if the Indians have destroyed the house that stood by the fork of the north river, where the settler Ouilmette lived ?" "I marked it through Lieutenant Helm's field-glass yesterday.