Perplexed, MacRae halted, and we bunched
together, whispering, each of us straining his eyes and ears to catch
some sight or sound of life in that black, ghostly quiet. We might have
concluded that our senses had been playing pranks at our expense, that
the flame we had seen from the ridge was purely an imaginary thing, but
for the rank, unmistakable odor of burning wood--a smell no man bred in
a land of camp-fires can mistake. We were near it, wherever it was, but
how near we had no means of knowing.
After a bit of waiting, Mac decided that the smoke was floating from a
certain direction, and we began to edge carefully that way. Presently we
circled a clump of brush, to come near riding right into a banked fire,
barely visible, even at short range, under its covering of earth. A
dimly outlined bulk lay beside it, and leaning over in our saddles, the
faint glow of the coals revealed a man's body, half stripped of its
clothing, and--oh, well, such things are so utterly devilish you
wouldn't credit it. It's bad enough to kill, even when it's necessary;
but I never could understand how a white man could take a leaf out of
the Indian's torture-book.
The fire had been heaped over with earth--to screen it from prying eyes,
I suppose, while the good work went on.
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