“Will you halt your people before it is too late?” I demanded. “Where are your proper senses? You behave like a man who has lost his mental balance!”

He gave me a dazed look, where he had been within his rights had he cut me down with his hatchet.

“What did you say?” he stammered, passing his hand over his eyes as though something had obscured his sight.

“I asked you to sound the recall. Those Indians we chase are leading us whither they will. What in God’s name ails you, Boyd? Have you never before seen an ambush?”

He stood motionless, as though stupefied, staring straight ahead of him. Then he said, hesitatingly, that he desired Tim Murphy to cripple one of the