Now the picture of Wyoming, the battle, the massacre, the torture, and Queen Esther wielding her great tomahawk on the bound captives, grew astonishingly vivid, and it was printed blood red on his brain.

The spirit of anger and defiance, of a desire to taunt those who had done such things, leaped up in his heart.
"Are you there, Braxton Wyatt ?" he called clearly across the intervening water.

"Yes, I see that it is you, murderer of women and children, champion of the fire and stake, as savage as any of the savages.

And it is you, too, Walter Butler, wickeder son of a wicked father.

Come a little closer, won't you?
We've messengers here for both of you!" He tapped lightly the barrel of his own rifle and that of Shif'less Sol, and repeated his request that they come a little closer.
They understood his words, and they understood, also, the significant gesture when he patted the barrel of the rifles.