Copyright, 1892, by J. B. Lippincott & Co.
The men had driven away. Their carts and horses disappeared behind the
roll of the low hills. They appeared now and then, like boats on the
crest of a wave, further each time. And their laughter and singing and
shouts grew fainter as the bushes hid them from sight.
The women and children remained, with two old men to protect them. They
might have gone too, the hunters said. "What harm could come in the
broad daylight?--the bears and panthers were far away. They'd be back by
night, with only two carts to fill."
Then Jim, the crack shot of the settlement, said, "We'll drive home the
bears in the carts."
The children shouted and danced as they thought of the sport to come, of
the hunters' return with their game, of the bonfires they always built.
One pale woman clung to her husband's arm. "But the Indians!" she said.
That made the men all laugh. "Indians!" they cried; "why, there've been
none here for twenty years! We drove them away, down there"--pointing
across the plain--"to a hotter place than this, where the sand burns
their feet and they ride for days for water."