Next morning they came to a tiny run in a hollow. It bubbled from a sandy spring not far above. The water ran between low green banks deeply covered with moss. Great oaks and pines stood over them. On either side the slopes of the hollow sheltered the place. No sound reached them here but the soft sough of the wind high in the treetops and the tingle of the water over red shale rock into the tiny crystal pool beneath.

Claire stood looking around.

“It is the place,” she said. “The Great Spirit has prepared it.”

It was hard digging into the forest soil. The child watched incredulously as Claire worked on her knees with her hands. There was something inhuman about the scene, as if an animal burrowed with its paws. The only tools were Claire’s fingers and flat rocks from the run to cut the roots. Her palms scooped out the dark ground. The rest of the day she worked at the small hole, deepening it, squaring and leveling bottom and sides. It was late afternoon when she finished. The hush that comes before sundown lay over everything when Nan saw Claire rip strips from her own tattered skirt and wrap them around the small form. Although the child watched closely not a tear could she see in the gray face. Repeating strange monotonous words over and over in the Indian tongue, Claire pushed back the black ground, patted the mound smooth with her hands, then as twilight fell started to fetch protective rocks from the distant creek.

Suddenly Nan screamed. An Indian with his gun stood at the edge of the hollow looking at them. It was, the child recognized, the young savage with the curly maple rifle who had been so thick with Claire ever since she joined the war party. Claire herself seemed unstartled to see him. The pair sat down and talked in their strange tongue while Nan fearfully watched and listened, understanding nothing. At the end the young savage took a hunk of some hard black meat from his shirt, shaved thin slices from it with his hunting knife, and gave the dry tasteless shavings to the child, who spit them out with loathing.

That night he stayed with them. Very early in the morning when it was still dark Nan awoke and found herself lying alone. Lifting her head, she saw the young savage gone and Claire sitting motionless beside the small grave. It was still night in the hollow, but as she watched, the first red rays of the sun came through and fell on two pine trunks on either side of the grave, lighting up the pillars and their grotesque roots with a reddish glow so that in the dimness they looked like the portal to some mysterious dark kingdom where only the wild and barbaric could obtain admission, where incomprehensible words were spoken and forest rites performed that no white child dare see or could understand if she did. Slowly the outlandish red light reached the fresh mound and it seemed as if this small grave between the two red columns was the threshold where all who entered had to pass.