Their hands sprawled toward me, red and beckoning. They were
mutilated, but I knew their clothes. They were Leclerc and Labarthe.
Leclerc was hanging on Labarthe as he had leaned in life.
I had brought these men to the wilderness. And Simon was dead, too. I
went on.
I saw a Seneca, stripped and running blood, crouch to a white man on
the ground and lift his knife to take the scalp. I sprang upon him,
but he dashed my knife away, found his feet, and pressed at me. I
dodged his hatchet, and catching up a skin shield from the ground
turned on him. I was taller than he, and I smashed the shield down on
his head so that he dropped. I pounded him till he was beyond doing
harm to any one, then I took his knife and hatchet, tossed him aside,
and turned to the white man.
It was Starling, and there was life in him, for he opened his eyes.
I took my flask and forced brandy between his teeth. He recognized me
but could not speak. A great spear had torn through his chest. I
started to pull it out, but when I looked farther and saw what a
hatchet had done I checked myself.
His eyes were on mine and he tried to speak. It was more than I could
look at,--his effort to hold life in his torn body and tell me
something.
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