Tisdale halted again, and in the silence Elizabeth sighed.  Then, “I’ll bet you didn’t waste any time in that place,” exclaimed Morganstein.

“The eyes were closed,” resumed Tisdale gently.  “I saw the blow had taken him in his sleep, but the wantonness, the misery of it, turned me cold.  Then, you are right, I was seized with a panic to get away.  I laid the papoose back in the place where I had found him and left my string of fish, a poor tribute, with what money I had about me, and hurried down into the bed of the brook.

“The squaws were several days’ travel from the reservation, but I remembered we had passed a small encampment a few miles down the river and another near the mouth of the Dosewallups, where a couple of Indians were fishing from canoes.  I knew they would patrol the stream as soon as the alarm was given, and my only chance was to make a wide detour, avoiding my camp where they would first look for me, swim the river, and push through the forest, around that steep, pyramid peak to the next canyon.  You see it?—­The Duckabush cuts through there to tide water.  I left no trail in crossing the stony bed of the brook, and took advantage of a low basalt bluff in climbing the farther bank.  It was while I was working my way over the rock into cover of the trees that the pleasant calling on the ridge behind me changed to the first terrible cry.  The mother had found her dead baby.

“Twilight was on me when I stopped at last on the river bank to take off my shoes.  I rolled them with my coat in a snug pack, which I secured with a length of fish-line to my shoulders before I plunged in.  The current was swift; I lost headway, and a whirlpool caught me; I was swept under, came up grazing a ragged rock, dipped again through a riffle, and when I finally gathered myself and won out to the opposite shore, there was my camp in full view below me.  I was winded, bruised, shivering, and while I lay resting I watched Sandy.  He stirred the fire under his kettle, put a fresh lag on, then walked to the mouth of the brook and stood looking up stream, wondering, no doubt, what was keeping me.  Then a long cry came up the gorge.  It was lost in the rush of the rapids and rose again in a wailing dirge.  The young squaw was mourning for her papoose.  It struck me colder than the waters of the Dosewallups.  Sandy turned to listen.  I knew I had only to call, show myself, and the boys would be ready to fight for me every step of the trail down to the settlement; but there was no need to drag them in; I hoped they would waste no time in going out, and I found my pocket compass, set a course, and pushed into the undergrowth.