Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/79

Rh men! Whoever is wounded upon the arm by the little arrow fears not the Red Death. A little wound like the scratch of a twig—in a few days a small sickness—and never more can the Red Death harm him. If my lips have spoken a lie, then shall you burn me, and my brother, also." Swiftly he rolled back the sleeve of his coat and of his shirt and bared his arm upon which, still red from recent vaccination, a scar showed plainly in the flare of the firelight. "See, it is the sign of the medicine arrow! The Red Death cannot harm me!"

Suddenly he whirled upon the medicine man: "Come, we shall see who speaks with the forked tongue! It shall be the test. Together we will go into a lodge of the Red Death. We shall pick out the man most festered, upon whom the hand of the Red Death lies heaviest, and we shall touch with our hands his sores, and shall breathe his breath, and stay in his lodge for an hour. Then shall we wait eight sleeps—and these shall be the judges. Before the eighth sleep, you shall be stricken, and the hand of the Red Death shall be upon you, and I shall be unharmed. If my words are true, then all shall be wounded upon the