DEATH IN THE DARKNESS. 397 



was deserted, and every thing about it as silent as 

 the grave. T^o curling smoke uprose among the 

 trees, and the everlasting hills and dusky prairies 

 stretched away on all sides in weird, wild desolation. 

 We shook the door, and called, but found no answer. 

 It was fastened upon the inside, and as we had no 

 right to force it, we passed on, and encamped by the 

 "Waconda Da," or Great Spirit Salt Spring, a few 

 miles below. 



We did not suppose that the old man we had 

 sought was so near us. Up on a high ridge only a 

 short distance off, his body was lying, another vic- 

 tim of Indian murder. Savages had been raiding 

 through the settlements below, and thinking himself 

 exposed, he had contrived to fasten the door of the 

 block-house from the outside, and attempted to escape 

 in the night. 'No one but the red murderers saw the 

 old man die, and how and when they met him will 

 never be known ; but his body w^as found near the 

 roadside, where the path- wound over a high ridge, 

 and within sight of the Waconda, and there it was 

 afterward laid in its lonely sepulcher by his sorrow- 

 ing family. 



Down on a creek below, the savages, on the pre- 

 vious evening, had been sweeping off the thin line of 

 settlements, as a broom sweeps spiders' houses from 

 the wall. Perhaps some dark demon eye, glancing 

 up from the crimson trail, saw the old man, bending 

 under the weight of years, feebly trying to save the 

 few remaining days left him, and turned pitilessly 

 aside to hurl him into that grave which, at best, 



could not be far off. No struggle was visible where 



22 



