They saw the rider
leap from saddle, almost within arms' length of the singer; saw her
quickly turn, as though, for the first time, aware of an intruder. Then
the wailing song went out in sudden scream of mingled wrath, hatred and
despair, and, like the Sioux that she was at heart, the girl made one
mad rush to reach the point of bluff where was a sheer descent of over
eighty feet. A shriek of dread went up from the crowded sleigh; a cry of
rejoicing, as the intruder sprang and clasped her, preventing her
reaching the precipice. But almost instantly followed a moan of anguish,
for slipping at the crest, together, firmly linked, they came rolling,
sliding, shooting down the steep incline of the frozen bluff, and
brought up with stunning force among the ice blocks, logs and driftwood
at the base.
They bore them swiftly homeward,--Field senseless and sorely
shaken,--Nanette's fierce spirit slowly drifting away from the bruised
and broken tenement held there, so pityingly, in the arms of Esther
Dade. Before the Christmas fires were lighted in the snowbound, frontier
fort, they had laid all that was mortal of the brave, deluded girl in
the little cemetery of Fort Frayne, her solemn story closed, on earth,
forever.
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