er the trenches, followed by a
whirlwind of the long, slender messengers of death, several of them
taking effect. Pootoo's men returned the volley from behind the
breastworks, but the rampant chargers were not to be checked. Up to the
very edge of the trench they rushed, and from that moment it does not
lie within the power of the writer to depict the horrors of the conflict
in detail. Hugh's men, well protected and well armed, hurled death into
the ranks, of the fearless enemy as it crowded to the high breastworks.
And out from the mouth of the pass poured the mass of Ooloozers who had
not ascended the hill.

Ridgeway, cutting viciously away at the black bodies as they plunged
against the wall behind which they stood, felt the spears crash against
his shield, heard them hiss past, saw them penetrate the earthworks all
about him. At another time he would have wondered how he and his men
could hope to withstand such an onslaught. One thing he did have time to
observe, and that was the surprise, consternation, even fear that came
into the enraged faces of the assaulting savages when they saw him
plainly. They were looking for the first time on the face of a white
man--the new god of their enemies.

A sudden change in the tide of battle, though brief, transferred the
brunt of conflict to another quarter. A withering rain of spears struck
the enemy on the flank and rear, and down from the opposite hilltop
rushed the mob that had formed the other boulder squad at the beginning
of the fight, but who had done nothing after the first charge of the
Oolooz men up the hill. They threw themselves upon the enemy and were
soon lost in the boiling mass. Gaining fresh courage and a renewed
viciousness, the men in the trenches forsook the shelter and poured into
the open, Hugh being powerless to check them.

"It is all over," groaned he, when he saw his crazy forces jump into the
very centre of the seething mass. With a white man's shrewdness he
remained behind the friendly breastworks, a dozen of his warriors
fighting by his side. Repeated rushes against his position were broken
by the desperate resistance of this small company. Hugh's heavy sword
was dripping with blood; it had beaten in the skull of many a foe, had
been driven beneath the shields and through the bodies of others. To him
it seemed hours instead of minutes since the battle began; his arm was
growing tired, his brain was whirling, his body was dripping with
perspirat