is chief at once
and bore down upon him like a thunderbolt. The chief was a brave man.
He did not wince, but, drawing the arrow to its head as the other
approached, let it fly full at his breast. The white man dropped on the
neck of his steed as if he had been struck with lightning; the arrow
passed close over his back and found its mark in the breast of one of
the savages, whose death yell mingled with that of the chief as, a
moment later, the gigantic warrior ran him with a straight point through
the body.

The Indians were scattered now. The rapid dash of that tumultuous
fight, although of but a few seconds' duration, had swept the combatants
to the extreme edge of the woods, leaving Bertram standing in the midst
of dead and dying men gazing with a bewildered, helpless look at the
terrible scene. March Marston lay close by his side, apparently dead,
in the grip of the savage who had first attacked him, and whose throat
his own hand grasped with the tenacity and force of a vice.

Most of the Indians leaped over the bushes and sought the shelter of the
thick underwood, as the tremendous horseman, whom doubtless they now
deemed invulnerable, came thundering down upon them again; but about
twenty of the bravest stood their ground. At that moment a loud shout
and a fierce "hurrah!" rang out and echoed hither and thither among the
rocks; and, next instant, Big Waller, followed by Bounce and his
friends, as well as by Macgregor and his whole party, sprang from the
Wild-Cat Pass, and rushed furiously upon the savages, who had already
turned and fled towards the wood for shelter. The whole band crossed
the battlefield like a whirlwind, leaped over or burst through the
bushes, and were gone--the crashing tread of their footsteps and an
occasional shout alone remaining to assure the bewildered artist, who
was still transfixed immovable to the ground, that the whole scene was
not a dream.

But Bertram was not left alone on that bloody field. On the first sound
of the approach of the white men to the rescue, the strange horseman--
who, from the moment of his bursting so opportunely on the scene, had
seemed the very impersonation of activity and colossal might--pulled up
his fiery steed; and he now sat, gazing calmly into the forest in the
direction in which the Indians and traders had disappeared.

Stupefied though he was, Bertram could not avoid being impressed and
surprised by the sudden and total change which had co