y rifle loaded,
here came the other two red skins, shouting and whooping close on me,
and away I broke again like a quarter horse. I was now about five miles
from the settlement, and it was getting towards sunset; I ran till my
wind began to be pretty short, when I took a look back and there they
came snorting like mad buffaloes, one about two or three hundred yards
ahead of the other, so I acted possum again until the foremost Injin got
pretty well up, and I wheeled and fired at the very moment he was
'drawing a _bead_' on me; he fell head over stomach into the dirt, and
up came the last one!"

"So you laid for him and--" gasped several.

"No," continued the "member," "I didn't lay for him, I hadn't time to
load, so I layed _legs_ to ground, and started again. I heard every
bound he made after me. I ran and ran, until the fire flew out of my
eyes, and the old dog's tongue hung out of his mouth a quarter of a yard
long!"

"Phe-e-e-e-w!" whistled somebody.

"Fact! gentlemen. Well, what I was to do I didn't know--rifle empty, no
big trees about, and a murdering red Indian not three hundred yards in
my rear; and, what was worse, just then it occurred to me that I was not
a great ways from a big creek, (now called Mill Creek,) and there I
should be pinned at last.

"Just at this juncture I struck my toe against a root, and down I
tumbled, and my old dog over me. Before I could scrabble up--"

"The Indian fired!" gasped the old woodsman.

"He did, gentlemen, and I felt the ball strike me under the shoulder;
but that didn't seem to put any embargo upon my locomotion, for as soon
as I got up I took off again, quite freshened by my fall! I heard the
red skin close behind me coming booming on, and every minute I expected
to have his tomahawk dashed into my head or shoulders.

"Something kind of cool began to trickle down my legs into my boots--"

"Blood, eh? for the shot the varmint gin you," said the old woodsman, in
a great state of excitement.

"I thought so," said the Senator, "but what do you think it was?"

Not being blood, we were all puzzled to know what the blazes it could
be. When Riley observed--

"I suppose you had--"

"Melted the deer fat which I had stuck in the breast of my hunting
shirt, and the grease was running down my legs until my feet got so
greasy that my heavy boots flew off, and one hitting the dog, nearly
knocked his brains out."

We all grinned, which the "member" noticing, observed--