Page:Life Amongst the Modocs.djvu/366

 me to make

the rest of the journey with strangers and without a friend.

Paquita !

Why, we had watched the great sun land, like some mighty navigator sailing the blue seas of heaven, on the flashing summit of Shasta ; had seen him come with lifted sword and shield, and take possession of the continent of darkness; had watched him in the twilight marshal his forces there for the last great struggle with the shadows, creeping like evil spirits through the woods, and, like the red man, make a last grand battle there for his old dominions. We had seen him fall and die at last with all the snow- peak crimsoned in his blood.

No more now. Paquita, the child of nature, the sunbeam of the forest, the star that had seen so little of light, lay wrapped in darkness. Paquita lay cold and lifeless in my arms.

That night my life widened and widened away till it touched and took in the shores of death.