rest, and it was not safe for the
pursuers to shoot at the fugitives, who were only occasionally visible
between tree-trunks and bushes, for the arrow might have struck a
friend.

Tyope ran so fast that he soon left his pursuers far behind him. When he
noticed that their shouting sounded more distant, he stopped, crouched
under a bush that grew near the foot of a large tree, and listened and
peered again. He was breathless from the rapid flight, and his heart
throbbed so violently at first that he could not clearly distinguish
sound from sound. At last he grew quiet, and now heard the din that
seemed to fill the entire forest in every direction except the north. It
was nearest toward the east and south, and there the fight seemed to
concentrate. Above the shouting, yelling, whooping, sounded the piercing
war-whistle. There could be no thought of still winning anything like
success, for the day was irretrievably, disastrously lost. To save as
many of the survivors as possible was all that could be done. Tyope
would have raved, had it been of any avail. This terrible failure, he
saw clearly, ruined his prospects forever. He wished to die, and despair
began for the first time in his life to fill his heart.

The noise of the battle was now approaching rapidly from the east and
south. The Tehuas were forcing his men into a confused mass; it was no
longer an action, it was becoming a slaughter, a butchery of the
vanquished. Tyope felt as if chills and fever were alternately running
through him; his people were without head, for the Hishtanyi Chayan was
useless as a leader. He must try to get through, and as it was
impossible to force a passage, he determined to steal through at all
hazards.

A number of Tehuas had passed without seeing him, in their eagerness to
reach the slaughter-pen into which the timbered plateau above the Canada
Ancha was converted. Tyope improved the opportunity to slip from one
tree to another, toward where the greatest uproar was heard. Voices
sounded quite near, and he cowered down between two cedars. The voices
came nearer, and the more he listened the more he became convinced that
his own tongue was spoken. He was on the point of rising and going up to
the parties who spoke Queres, for they must be friends. He distinctly
heard his name. He looked, and looked anxiously, for he preferred to
find out who they were ere addressing them. As they came closer he
thought he recognized a woman's voice.