and the red man its child.  In a hazy way came the question whether after all it were not foolhardy to remain here now, to dare that invisible, intangible something before which, almost in panic, the others had fled.  To be sure, precedent was with him, logic; but—­of a sudden—­but a minute had passed—­his arms tightened; involuntarily he held his breath.  Hans Mueller had been moving on and on; another half minute and he would have been behind the base of the hill out of sight; when, as from the turf at one’s feet there springs a-wing a covey of prairie grouse, from the tall grass about the retreating figure there leaped forth a swarm of other similar dark figures:  a dozen, a score—­in front, behind, all about.  Apparently from mother earth herself they had come, autochthonous.  Almost unbelieving, the spectator blinked his eyes; then, as came swift understanding, instinctively he shielded the woman in his arms from the sight, from the knowledge.  Not a sound came to his ears from over the prairie:  not a single call for help.  That black swarm simply arose, there was a brief, sharp struggle, almost fantastic through the curling heat waves; then one and all, the original dark figure, the score of others, disappeared—­as suddenly as though the earth from which they came had swallowed them up.  Look as he might, the spectator could catch no glimpse of a moving object, except the green-brown grass carpet glistening under the afternoon sun.

Yet a moment longer the man stood so; then, his own face as pale as had been that of coward Hans Mueller, he leaned against the lintel of the door.

“Yes, we’re too late now, Margaret,” he echoed.

CHAPTER II

FULFILMENT

The log cabin of Settler Rowland, as a landmark, stood forth.  Barred it was—­the white of barked cotton-wood timber alternating with the brown of earth that filled the spaces between—­like the longitudinal stripes of a prairie gopher or on the back of a bob-white.  Long wiry slough grass, razor-sharp as to blades, pungent under rain, weighted by squares of tough, native sod, thatched the roof.  Sole example of the handiwork of man, it crowned one of the innumerable rises, too low to be dignified by the name of hill, that stretched from sky to sky like the miniature waves on the surface of a shallow lake.  Back of it, stretching northward, a vivid green blot, lay a field of sod corn:  the ears already formed, the ground whitened from the lavishly scattered pollen of the frayed tassels.  In the dooryard itself was a dug well with a mound of weed-covered clay by its side and a bucket hanging from a pulley over its mouth.  It was deep, for on this upland water was far beneath the surface, and midway of its depth, a frontier refrigerator reached by a rope ladder, was a narrow chamber in which Margaret Rowland kept her meats fresh, often for a week at a time.  For another purpose as well it was used:  a big basket with a patchwork quilt and a pillow marking the spot where Baby Rowland, with the summer heat all about, slept away the long, sultry afternoons.