Page:Flint and Feather (1914).djvu/57

But they searched in vain for the Cattle Thief: that
    lion had left his lair,
And they cursed like a troop of demons—for the
    women alone were there.
"The sneaking Indian coward," they hissed; "he
    hides while yet he can;
He'll come in the night for cattle, but he's scared
    to face a man."
"Never!" and up from the cotton woods rang the
    voice of Eagle Chief;
And right out into the open stepped, unarmed, the
    Cattle Thief.
Was that the game they had coveted? Scarce fifty
    years had rolled
Over that fleshless, hungry frame, starved to the
    bone and old;
Over that wrinkled, tawny skin, unfed by the
    warmth of blood.
Over those hungry, hollow eyes that glared for the
    sight of food.

He turned, like a hunted lion: "I know not fear,"
    said he;
And the words outleapt from his shrunken lips in
    the language of the Cree.
"I'll fight you, white-skins, one by one, till I
    kill you all," he said;
But the threat was scarcely uttered, ere a dozen
    balls of lead
Whizzed through the air about him like a shower
    of metal rain,