_ A second turnip, decayed like its predecessor, aimed
likewise unerringly, caught her fair in the mouth, spattered, and broke
into fragments that fell to the car steps. Following, swift as rain
after a thunderclap, a spurt of blood came to her lips and trickled down
her face.
Simultaneously the crowd went silent; silent as the still prairie about
them, awed irresistibly by the thing they had themselves wittingly or
unwittingly done. Save one, not a human being stirred. That one, no need
to tell whom, transformed visibly; transformed as they had never seen a
human being alter before. With not a step, but a bound, he was himself
on the platform of the coach; the girl, protected behind him, hid from
sight. She was sobbing now; sobbing tumultuously, hysterically. In the
stillness every listening ear on the platform could hear distinctly. For
an instant after he had reached her the Indian stood so, his left arm
about her, his back toward them. He did not say a word, he did not move.
For the first time in his life he dared not. He did not see red that
moment, this man; he saw black--black as prairie loam. Every savage
instinct in his brain was clamouring for freedom, clamouring until his
free hand was clenched tight to keep it from the bulging holster behind
his right hip. Before this instant, when they were baiting him alone, it
was nothing, he could forgive; but now--now--He stared away from them,
stared up into the smiling, sarcastic prairie sky; but, listening, they,
who almost with fascination watched, could hear beneath the catch of the
girl's sobs the sound of his breathing.
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