Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/364



other side, everywhere I scanned with Indian eyes for even a sign of life, for friend or foe. Nothing but the bubble and gurgle of the waters, the nod ding, dipping, dripping of the reeds, the willows, and the tules.

If earth has any place more solemn, more solitary, more awful than the banks of a strong, deep river rushing, at nightfall, through a mountain forest, where even the birds have forgotten to sing, or the katydid to call from the grass, I know not where it is.

I stole further up the bank ; and there, almost at my feet, a little face was lifted as if rising from the water into mine.

Blood was flowing from her mouth, and she could not speak. Her naked arms were reached out and holding on to the grassy bank, but she could not draw her body from the water. I put my arms about her, and, with a sudden and singular strength, lifted her up and back to some warm, dry rocks, and there sat down with the dying girl in my arms.

She was bleeding from many wounds. Her whole body seemed to be covered with blood as I drew her from the water. Blood spreads with water over a warm body in streams and seams; and at such a time a body seems to be covered with a sheet of crimson.

Paquita?

I entreated her to speak. I called to her, but she could not answer. The desolation and so