over his shoulders, shading and softening the swarthy features between its
curled waves, now slipped from his head and fell to the floor. The change
which its absence wrought was startling. Of the man the moiety that was
white disappeared. The shaven head, its poise, its features, were Indian;
the soul was Indian, and looked from Indian eyes. Suddenly, for the last
transforming touch, came a torrent of words in a strange tongue, the
tongue of his mother. Of what he was speaking, what he was threatening, no
one of them could tell; he was a savage giving voice to madness and hate.

Haward pushed back his chair from the table, and, rising, walked across
the room to the window. Hugon followed him, straining at the rope about
his arms and speaking thickly. His eyes were glaring, his teeth bared.
When he was so close that the Virginian could feel his hot breath, the
latter turned, and uttering an oath of disgust struck the back of his
hand across his lips. With the cry of an animal, Hugon, bound as he was,
threw himself bodily upon his foe, who in his turn flung the trader from
him with a violence that sent him reeling against the wall. Here
Saunderson, a man of powerful build, seized him by the shoulders, holding
him fast; MacLean, too, hurriedly crossed from the door. There was no
need, for the half-breed's frenzy was spent. He stood with glittering eyes
following Haward's every motion, but quite silent, his frame rigid in the
overseer's grasp.

Colonel Byrd went up to Haward and spoke in a low voice: "Best send them
at once to Williamsburgh."

Haward shook his head. "I cannot," he said, with a gesture of impatience.
"There is no proof."

"No proof!" exclaimed his guest sharply. "You mean"--