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CHAPTER XXIX
ON THE EVE OF THE ATTACK

Cherokee Bill was ill at ease as regards the newcomers, and, whilst other scouts left the main body to discover what was the force approaching from the north, he took the almost opposite direction. But when a scout goes out thus "on his own hook," he makes sure of his way back being clear. A scout must return with news, that is his ruling motto. Besides, the Half-breed on the scouting path was very prudent. His line led him across a trail to Old Nick's Cutoff, and there he scrutinised the ground.

In a few minutes he frowned and stooped lower. He had perceived, scarcely more than discernible though, the mark of a human foot, invisible for other eyes. He gave some seconds' concentrated examination to it, for it was not an Indian's tread, nor a white man's in soft heelless shoes, but that of the wearer of pegged boots, such as are common on the border. They are too heavy and require too much reparation in dry weather to suit the hunters; they adopt the redskins' lighter and pleasanter footgear, as do the Canadian Half-breeds.

There was no doubt that one of Captain Kidd's crew had been here, and recently. Whence he came last and whither he was going now were the questions. That this was a spy of the gold grabbers was clear to Bill. Still, confirmation was far from easy. Except over a few square feet where a shallow rock basin had preserved moist soil, there was nothing but hard stone and dry rocks. The Cherokee chief was not disheartened for all that, being rather too experienced in desert tricks.

This solitary footprint was on the skirt of the woodland, the toe pointing thither.

"He's altogether too blamed cunning," muttered he, with an inward chuckle. "This might scoop in a white man, but not even half an Injin."

He dropped to the ground, and lying thereon like a geographer intently investigating a crabbedly written map, explored every inch of the soil. After a long while he caught sight, a couple of yards distant from the footmark – in the same direction – of a long thin scratch, made evidently by an iron instrument which had lightly slid along. That brought forth a smile, and he went back whence he came.

A huge old cedar rose at the wood border, and flung out protective boughs, so that one waved majestically above the lone footstep. He looked up at it without seeing anything out of the common. He shook his head and fell a-thinking. Then, going all around the tree, he picked out the best side for climbing, where weather had made it rugged, and was at the first branch in two or three minutes. There he stopped to have a look around. His lips curled in silent satisfaction. He crawled along the bough like a panther going to drop on a fawn, and reached a place where a cord had chafed half a ring on the round.

He could go down again – the mystery was solved.

One or more men had gone through the woods, monkey fashion, in the trees, and when at the edge had wound a rope, probably a lasso, to the bough by which to lower themselves to the ground, taking heed to land with their toes towards the course they had followed. Once afoot, they had used an ironshod staff to execute a giant's stride off the damp place under the sheltering tree upon the hard, dry stone. Hence the metallic line noticed by the hunter.

What they were and what their number little worried him. The main point was that he could find them readily. They might conceal themselves temporarily amongst the chaos of boulders, but escape was out of the question! Beyond was an immensely deep abyss, of which the adventurers were doubtless ignorant. They had entered into a no thoroughfare.

After overhauling his rifle, the hunter crept and glided among the large stones, looking in all directions, and stopping now and anon to listen avidly. He came to a spot where the whole of the rocky sea was comprehended in one view. A strange sight was offered him, which filled him with a kind of admiring surprise.

Two men had managed to throw a lasso over a jutting crag right over a large fissure serving as window to the Grotto. One had wound the rope about his middle, and with perfectly alarming boldness, was dangling over the fathomless abyss of the Cutoff with the hope to pry into the cavity.

At the nick when Bill Williams caught sight of this, the suspended man was about climbing up, and with the help of his comrade, was hastening to land on a ledge.

The Raven of the Cherokees allowed him to just get a footing, and whilst he was uncoiling the cord from his waist, Bill aimed at the second man and let the lead fly. It took him fair in the bosom, so that he leaped up in the air tremendously, and fell over into the gulf with an almost endless but more and more faint scream of agony.

Bringing another cartridge into readiness for an immediate shot, the Half-breed strode steadily towards the second bandit, who trembled all over in the greatest dread at his approach.

"My poor brother is shaky with too much weariness," remarked he, when nearer. "It must be as near hard work as ever you tried to hang by the girdle on a rope – and highly risky, too, for the string might snap, and there's no telling how deep you might drop."

The man stared at him as though not understanding the bitter jest. It was Bill who laughed.

"After such a job, you ought to have a rest," he went on. "Don't you fret – you'll have plenty of rest before I get through with you."

Whilst uttering this promise he had disarmed the prisoner of the weapons which he tossed over the precipice; then he used the lasso to bind the man, who could not think of resistance on that perilous shelf, all with a skill and dexterity that a European hangman might envy. As soon as he was pinioned so that to shudder was almost an impossibility, Bill gagged him so that his breathing was confined to the nostrils, Indian mode, and shouldering him like a bale of furs, he carried him to a cleft in the stone whence he could see nothing, and dropped him down within.

"It's nigh as close a fit as a grave," said he ominously. "But the coyotes won't touch you, never fear! And nobody else will. I'd advise your putting in some sleep whilst awaiting my coming back; it will prepare you for the long sleep you are fated to enjoy."

He left the wretch. He let a glance trace the circuit of the landscape, and, carrying his valuable gun under his left arm in the savage's fashion, he returned to discover the trail of the horsemen from the southeast. He seemed to be fully pleased with the late incident.

"All the news those scouts bring to old Captain Kidd will not spoil his slumber," he remarked, chewing some checkerberry leaves as if to counteract the nauseating flavour of the gold hunter's name.

Having settled his object, he marched forward in the Indian style, as the crow flies, all the more recommendable, as path there was none. This plan has the advantage of considerably abridging the road; but in a broken mountainous land most people would rather be excused. It requires steel muscles and uncommon vigour, and the craft to employ them properly; no fear of giddiness – the gifts of the mountain sheep, in short.

Without appearing to give a second thought to the narrow squeaks he had, turning angles in midair merely to reach cornices goats would have evaded, the Cherokee went steadfastly on and on, though each fresh hindrance seemed less surmountable than the easiest before. On the whole he moved rapidly, so that in three half hours he had gone what must have taken anybody else three or, maybe, four full ones.

About eleven, he bounded down on a broadish clearing, where an extremely transparent rivulet ran shallowly, with a melodious murmur, over pebbles where Californian diamonds and agates glowed in all colours, between banks edged with lilies and other aquatic plants.

His piercing eye explored the scene till he was satisfied with the profound stillness. He collected dead wood in a pile a little off from the streamlet, and lit a fire. When it had taken good hold, he dug up some edible roots, which he had found by the leaves as well as if they were labelled, and put them in the ashes to roast. On a large bed of hot coals he laid some strips of deer meat, and lighting his pipe, sat down for a quiet smoke – his gun ever handy, however.

During twenty minutes he only shifted to turn the meat with the point of his knife; both meat and the substitute for potatoes were soon nicely cooked. But even after he dished the peeled tubers upon a leaf and the meat on a strip of bark, with its satin lining equalled by no Dresden china platter, he seemed to wait for the cue to eat.

Indeed, there was a faint rustle in the covert which he must have heard, for he smiled and turned his face fully that way. A hunter crept out of the brush, his gun barrel directed forward and his finger on the trigger.

"Friend!" said Cherokee Bill, without further emotion.

"Well, I am knocked endwise! – The chief!" exclaimed the stranger, in amazement. It was no other than Mr. Filditch.

"Just in time," said Bill Williams, waving his hands hospitably in a kind of welcoming grace over the edibles, "though you are not precisely the man or men I expected."

"Well, I hope he is not dying of hunger, as I am," answered the Yankee Californian, dropping down joyfully in front of his friend. "We have been pushing on with such forced marches that we don't know what eating, sitting still, means!"

"We!" ejaculated the hunter, with what was great astonishment for him.

"What we? When we parted company you were about the lonesomest man in the woods, I should allow."

"Lonesome and lost, chief! Well, I wandered about alone, but I came back a hundred strong!"

"With these horse from the south'ard? I was expecting them."

"Perhaps Don Gregorio telegraphed to you overnight that he was about due?" cried Filditch, jestingly, as well as a mouth full of food would permit.

"Don Gregorio? That's all right, then! They are friends, for sure. That's a weight off my mind!"

"They were glad to have me as guide. They might have had a better. But you can take my office now. I resign with the utmost pleasure. But how has my uncle and the rest been getting on?"

"They are beautifully posted, as you will see."

From the tone, Filditch did not press; he knew that Bill was not communicative unless he pleased.

"What makes you prowl about alone?" inquired the hunter in a little while.

"I thought I recognised a landmark, and wanted to verify it. The troop is only a little beyond."

"Well, this is a good spot for the camp; but Jim and the boys are clean 'way up by the Yellowstone, where we must scoot in hot haste as soon as your band is recruited. Go, fetch 'em up smart!"

Filditch had "gobbled" his share of the unexpected repast. He felt ever so much better physically from that, and morally because he was assisted out of his dilemma as an inexperienced pilot by the proffered guidance of the Cherokee. He darted away in a delighted spirit.

In the meantime, Bill finished his pipe, muttered some remark on the Mexicans wanting to pick their way for the horses' sakes, and leisurely gathered fuel, of which he made a number of fires.

There was great glee among the four or five score Mexicans who rode into the break in the wooded and rocky land at this brilliant token of welcome. In another moment, old Gregorio Peralta, alighting with a briskness hardly anticipated from his silver beard, shook hands with Bill Williams cordially. Several of these Southerners knew Bill by sight, and nearly all by hearsay. It was Hail-fellow, well met! And the camp seemed in a festival.

Don Gregorio had been partly dispossessed of his prejudice against all whose blood was intermixed, by Mr. Filditch's glowing account of Bill Williams' excellences. He at once cast prejudices aloof, and felt genuine sympathy and admiration as he understood him better. He had pictured all reds to be savages fond of rapine and strong drink, with no clear notion on good and evil; essentially devoted to a brutish life, and only human in externals. In brief, ferocious bipeds incapable of generous sentiments.

The sight of the Cherokee, more than ever an Indian since he was on the warpath, so calm, fond of his comrades, handsome of his kind, able, loyal, and wise, his natural gifts added to, not enhanced, by his college training – these aspects made him believe that the Raven was an exception to all the race hitherto seen by him. As time passed over the meals, Don Gregorio learnt that the new guide was very human, with the same passions, virtues, and vices as others of the great human family.

The rest being over, the column formed anew, directed by the mixed-blood hunter, who "handled" them like a ship at sea with the deepwater pilot at the helm. The night made no difference to him, and he pressed them on. After two halts, he brought them to a point whence all was plain riding. It was desirable, perhaps, that this reinforcement should be kept a secret, from the gold grabbers in particular. Such a body of cavalry was invaluable for a final charge, or to pursue the fugitives after a defeat.

Don Gregorio impatiently expressed the wish to ride over towards the Elk's Leap, and confer with Jim Ridge.

"I do not catch what the guide says," remarked he, interrogatively.

"Oh, he says that white folks are very knowing theoretically, but lamentably fail in practice. I quite coincide."

"As how?"

"Well, we are not so near the camp of the Mountain Men and the united Indians as you fancy. The air is very different here from that of the southern plains. In the highlands the large masses absorb the lesser and merge all asperities into smoothness. You are three days off from the Yellowstone Basin, however fast your horses might scramble along." Thus the Cherokee.

"Well?"

"You must wait till Jim comes or otherwise meets you and assigns your place for the combat. Meanwhile, Don Gregorio, as you are eager to see your grandniece Rosario, take a couple of men, an extra mule, and lend me a horse. We will ride to where she is ensconced."

"What! You are never going to take her out of a place of shelter and bring her into the fighting place," cried the old Californian, whilst Filditch echoed the exclamation.

"Not so. I want the pack animal to bring my prisoner along to show Jim."

"A prisoner?"

"You shall see," answered Bill, curtly, turning away to select a horse among the several offered him; whilst Filditch, who, of course, went with them to see his daughter, despatched a messenger to Ridge's command with the gladsome news.

CHAPTER XXX
THE HALF-BREED DIES GAME

Kidd was spending the night without any rest. Besides the tumultuous emotions excited by the proximity of the treasure land, the uncontrolability of his forces worried him exceedingly. He was confident that on finding gold, admitting that they penetrated the Firehole country unimpeded, it would be each man for himself. Even now he felt lonely enough. Dan Steelder had determinedly set off on a scouting expedition to see what had befallen Doña Rosario. He had expressly charged his associate to watch Leon well; but lo! That youth had slipped away as well as Lottery Paul, whether in company or separately was unsettled. As for Joe, he was left behind to guard the women and goods. And the departure of Dearborn increased Kidd's misery at being abandoned, for the guide had shown him the promised goal and departed.

"If only in cutting our way through these unknown enemies we lose the bulk of this riffraff," he muttered, "I shall perhaps have a choice few whom I can govern. All may yet be for the best, and Joe and me can set up a hotel for summer tourists, with the richest gold mine in our wine cellar, right there in the heart of the Yellowstone."

Leon had not gone away with the Frenchman, but the latter's departure was directly the cause of his. The Drudge, angered at being divided from the Carcajieu, was only awaiting an opportunity to leave the captain. As payment for his long unremunerated services, he took a horse from Foxface and arms and equipment, passing the outposts with the truth seeming plea that he was sent on a special mission by the leader.

"It's stuck him up high," muttered the outer guard. "The boy is quite handsome all of a sudden!"

In fact, Leon was transformed, for, being of an eagle race, the more doleful he was in captivity, the more haughty and noble he was unfettered.

Long hours of meditation over the wilderness had "soaked" knowledge into him of wood and desert craft almost unawares.

He rode at once into the high grass and canebrake in the wet pits at the bottom of the canyon, for it was so high that he was hidden on the horse's back.

He mocked at the night, confident that he could guide himself by the stars. He ate in the saddle, and though he did not ride fast, kept on ceaselessly till he had gone by the Medicine Rock, where the Half-breeds were showing a fire in their ceremonies, pious perhaps, but assuredly imprudent.

Here he halted. From all Dearborn and Joe had imparted to him, he knew that friends were approaching and from the west. But should he proceed thitherward on the chance of crossing the trail of their outliers, or climb the other side of the giant defile and join Corky Joe, with whom he could be comparatively at ease, and if anything befell Kidd, as free as now?

His brooding was almost tragically put an end to by a gunshot above him, and whilst he instinctively looked up, his poor horse leaped and fell sidewise to the ground. In the flash he had recognised the face of the Frenchman. He threw himself off the dying horse, and none too soon, for a second shot, from a large pistol this time, carried away his hat, and with a fragment of the bullet laid the flesh open on his cheekbone. He stumbled at the shock, and rolled on the grass beside the stiffening horse.

"Aha!" cried Paul, who could be heard descending in the brushwood, "So I have served out my spy this time. Our dear captain, he does so hate to lose a man, that he sends after him. Who is it, anyhow, that I've peppered?"

Leon remained prone, but slewed his gun round ready. As he lay, the dead steed formed a rampart: he was well posted.

"He's my meat," muttered the Frenchman, holding on by a bush and peering down through the gloom.

"Not precisely!" interrupted another voice, on the same level; "It is you, dog, who shall die!"

On this threat from an unexpected quarter, Paul dropped to the next ledge and jumped behind a tree. Leon rose slowly and cautiously, and looked up. By the stranger's voice he had, he believed, recognised Dearborn.

He and the bandit were at the limits of a comparatively clear space. The youth stole off obliquely to the right so as to left flank the Frenchman. He aimed his rifle, and, leaving shelter, cried so loudly that the Englishman could also know him by his voice:

"You are all wrong. Mr. Paul, it is you who must die."

Lottery Paul looked at him steadily and replied:

"Maybe – two to one is odds – but you shall lead the way to Kingdom come."

But before he had time to change the direction of his piece, bearing on the Englishman, Leon fired, knowing what kind of murderous fellow he was.

Over he rolled, clawing up the moss, with a fractured skull.

Dearborn ran up. But at the same time there was a noise in the thicket, and several men appeared. Nothing was more impressive than this peopling of the solitude in such obscurity.

"Drop your guns!" shouted one of the newcomers, authoritatively; "We're all friends here, I reckon."

"Bill Williams!"

It was the Cherokee and Filditch, and his eight or ten men besides.

"What's the meaning of all this?" said Filditch, as there was a group formed around the dead robber and the guide and the servant of Captain Kidd.

"In the first place," said the hunter, "there's your son in that young man. It is a sufficient card of introduction that he has rubbed out one of the vermin anyway, though we are lucky if their confounded rattle of shots does not spoil the scheme."

"My son!"

"Yes, Rosa's brother," went on the hunter. "We won't mind you two. Well, Mr. Dearborn, out of the trap?"

"Yes. I was looking for some of you, when I found there was a horseman below, and, on descending, was in time to see him overturned by a couple of shots from that ruffian. But the boy did not require my intervention. He avenged himself."

"Good boy! Well, now, all your information."

As soon as the hunter learnt details of the arrangement of the enemy, he formed a fresh variation, or rather supplement to the plan.

"Gentlemen," said Bill, thereupon, "over there, across the canyon, are the women and children. We will go straight to their camp. The guard know Leon and Mr. Dearborn, and, anyhow, Joe, their lieutenant, will accept them and remove any doubts. They will say they came back from the captain, who requites every spare hand, and decoy them into the bushes, where they must roaster them. The remainder should be but a gulp and they're gone, to us."

All is fair in war as in love. Dearborn accepted the task.

"Can you spare your son?" asked Jim of Filditch, beside whom stood Leon.

"I would like to go with him, Jim. I want a good deal to see this young lady who was such a comfort to Rosa."

"Go along, then."

Into the fog dived the detachment – Dearborn, Filditch, and Leon; Cherokee Bill as conductor, and a few men.

The others concluded all preparations for the desperate fight.

But it was not till half after ten that the stubborn fog, torn and drifted away by the sun and one of those strong gales which sweep up a canyon so lofty at the sides, melted away like a playhouse gauze and unmasked the sunny landscape.

Spite of this theatrical discovery, no one betrayed himself. Never had the desert seemed more untroubled. An undisturbed calm soothed the majestic solitude, and yet many men, strangers to one another, were straining to fly at the throat with ferocious rage fur gains vaguely defined.

At this moment, a red scout leaped up among the hunters' pickets, with the sign of friendliness and that he was a Blood Indian.

"Well, brother?" demanded Ridge.

"The Half-breeds slipped us during the fog, and have joined the gold robbers though not intermixing."

"They had some suspicion."

"The chiefs conjecture that something evil before them in the mad root swamp appalled them."

"Maybe Ahnemekee is heading them off there."

The scout shook his head as if he did not believe the Crows would venture so near the hallowed ground.

"In any case, we are ready. Return to your comrades and begin the battle. We shall also advance if we are not attacked."

"Good!" and the grinning demon bounded away along the hillside.

Very soon the scream of the grey eagle arose, shrill and prolonged.

Firing was opened with that absence of unison betokening that both sides were irregulars. The sound seemed to approach. All at once the war whoops of the savage union resounded like a cannon shot. The gunfire became more intense, and painful cries were tempering cheers and yells of triumph.

Kidd had indeed found the Crows in the dwarf wood, and feared to cross a mad root (Indian turnip) marsh in their teeth. He began a feigned retreat and enticed them into the mouth of the canyon where the Bois-Brulés fell on them, running down the slopes and almost annihilating them in the charge. The few survivors were carried by the impetus in among the rocks and pools of the bottomland, where they were slaughtered almost to a man. But even as the Canadians raised a cry of victory, the Piegans and their allies were rushing upon the white men in much the same manner. The Half-breeds hastened to coalesce with their confederates, and strengthen them against this onset. There was an obstinate struggle, the Indians seeking to detain the whole whilst they encircled them. Kidd, on the contrary, endeavoured to retire up the canyon and regain the tableland on high, where Joe and the rearguard were posted. It was a natural fort.

But suddenly, out of the most innocent bushes, but which had not been planted there across the way when they passed along, a deadly fire gushed from rifles far more potent than the Indians.

The bandits and the Manitobans were caught between two fires. Nevertheless, whilst the red men seemed the more numerous, the firing elsewhere allowed a sanguine man to believe that these new assailants were so limited in force that they were obliged to ambush themselves.

Kidd flourished his Spanish rapier, rallied his men, and shouted:

"Over them! Through them! It's our only chance. Come on, boys, where we have comrades!" and the column ran into the hunters' fire. At the same time, common enough when an enemy falter, the Indians whooped diabolically and charged the Half-breeds.

They and Kidd had not only the flank but the front fire to sustain, and nearly every second man seemed to fall.

However, those who escaped death, if not wounds, scrambled into the bushes. They were ungarrisoned, being merely a line beyond the real entrenchment, moat, and brushwood chevaux de frize.

The conflict became horrible when the bandits and Half-breeds, now serried together with little order, were brought up, all standing, against the barricades. They gave up hope, and so furiously fought that none dreamt of asking quarter. Forming a rampart of their own dead, and of those of the redskins who had rushed on the guns too rashly, the determined remnant held out, dumb, calm, and gloomy, like men of stone, certain of death, but bravely selling their lives.

Overcome with horror and pity for such a sublime resolution, Jim Ridge unexpectedly sprang over the breastwork, followed by Leon, who knew most of the sufferers, and shouted in a voice everybody heard:

"Quit of shooting! It's too all-fired mean to butcher them when they stand out so well."

On both sides he was obeyed; so much authority was in the voice of one for whom the reds and whites felt a profound respect, and to whom they knew they owed so much of success.

Without any weapons, the Yager, still accompanied by the generous boys, advanced up to the resistants till near enough to pull hair. At the wall of dead men they stopped.

Kidd was binding up a wound; Dagard was the ostensible leader.

"What do you want?" he asked, lowering his rifle and pistol, both hands being thus occupied.

"We come to offer you life. Injins like 'sand' in a man, and your grit is first brand."

"We asked no quarter," was the proud reply. "We would have given none, I daresay. We are not plumb played out, and we mean to die pulling trigger."

"Yes, we are 'on' that," chorused the others.

"Now, don't be silly. I grant you are not used up, and our spoiling your hopes must 'stubborn' ye. But, by the Great Star! You have mighty little to go on with. Look at the slope, full of Injins as a book of letters; not the kind loud on a whoop and singing small when they have revolvers and scalpers to meet. You had better hear my offers, for I am 'white' on this thing, and I am about the only man who can snatch ye out of the burning."

"I'm thankful, old hunter, but your words now are like wheels of the thistledown – they sail away on the wind. You have cut too deep for balsam. You have allied yourself with those reds agin' your colour, and all we want is revenge for your slaughtering our mates."

"Vengeance!" cried his men, and Kidd's.

"But, let me straighten out things," persisted Ridge, "in Heaven's name! I offer you life and freedom too."

"You may straighten out our corpses if you like. Meanwhile, we attach no faith in your words, and pledges, and good-for-nothing advice. Back with you! We are going to hold our end of this unequal combat up to the last."

He lifted his firearms so threateningly that the others interpreted the action as a signal for resumed hostilities. A rattling discharge ensued. Leon threw himself frantically before his granduncle, and received at least one bullet which would not otherwise have missed him. The youth fell, and the Yager dropped also, but this time to shield him and out of prudence. Over their heads a double volley crossed. Upon this sudden aggression, reasonably regarded as treachery, the battle renewed itself with unequalled bloodthirstiness on the confederates' part, and constant resolve on that of the foes.

Meanwhile, though under fire, Jim's first act was to see how his nephew was hurt. He uttered an outcry in joy amid the whizzing bullets, hurtling arrows, and falling boughs severed by the missiles: Leon was pale, but unwounded. The ball had flattened itself on the buckle of his belt, dented it, but not penetrated. The blow was a smart one, and knocked all the breath out of his body; but in a few minutes he came round, and was delighted to find that he had saved the old man's life.

During this the defenders had been hemmed in closely, fairly pushed out of their little fort, and were being mowed down. It was no fight, but carnage – a massacre which gives a name to the spot to this day.

Leon saw that the French Half-breed was literally pulled down, like a bull on whom the dogs cluster, by several of the Piegans and trappers.

"Oh! I must save that brave fellow," cried he.

Springing like a panther into the medley, he pulled off and pushed off the assailants, and embraced the Manitoban with both arms.

"My prisoner!" he shouted.

"His meat!" added Jim Ridge, who had closely followed.

"Back!" said Filditch, running up and repulsing the baffled men, who, however, betook themselves to other game.

Dagard looked sadly about him. Of his own race, hardly another save Margottet was upright anywhere near him. He shook his head despairingly.

"My poor children," said he in French, stifling a sob.

"Come out of this," cried Leon, offering to draw him away.

"I thank you, generous boy," was the answer with a noble courtesy, repulsing him gently, "and you, too, brave old hunter," he subjoined, addressing Ridge, "but your interference is useless. I am catching the hot soup deservedly for having linked myself with a chain gang. Look round! All the boys from Red River are dead, or gasping their last, under our feet. I am not seeking to escape the massacre. But, anyhow, here goes to save my top hair!"