ead. He
had been stunned by a grazing shot, no doubt, and had fallen among the first. He came up to his work, though, like a man, when his senses returned, and without counting the chances, lifted his two hands to do with all his might the thing he had been taught.
Valour, such valour as that, is not a cheap or com mon thing. It is rare enough to be respected even by the worst of men. It is only the coward that affects to despise such courage. He is moved to this alto gether by the lowest kind of jealousy. A coward knows how entirely contemptible he is, and can hardly bear to see another dignified with that noble attribute which he for ever feels is no part of his nature.
So this boy sat there on the stone as the village burned, the smoke from burning skins, the wild-rye straw, willow-baskets and Indian robes, ascended, and a smell of burning bodies went up to the Indians God and the God of us all, and no one said nay, and no one approached him ; the men looked at him from under their slouched hats as they moved around, but said nothing.
I pitied him. God knows I pitied him. I clasped my hands together in grief. I was a boy myself, alone, helpless, in an army of strong and unsympa thetic men. I would have gone up and put my arms about the wild and splendid little savage, bloody and desperate as he was, so lonely now, so intimate with death, so pitiful ! if I had dared, dared the reproach of men-brutes.
