edge of rocks, when first set upon by the Indians, and his eyes
squinting daggers and ratsbane, especially while he was giving utterance
to that gallinaceous slogan with which he was wont to express his
appetite for conflict, and with which he now concluded his unceremonious
salutation.

The voice and visage were alike familiar to Bruce's senses, and neither
was so well fitted to excite alarm as merriment. But, on the present
occasion, they produced an effect upon the young Regulator's spirits, and
through them upon his actions, the most unfortunate in the world; to
understand which it must be recollected that the worthy Kentuckian had,
twenty-four hours before, with his own hands, assisted in gibbeting
honest Ralph on the beech tree, where, he had every reason to suppose,
his lifeless body was hanging at that very moment. His astonishment and
horror may therefore be conceived, when, turning in some purturbation at
the well known voice, he beheld that identical body, the corse of the
executed horse-thief, crawling after him in the grass, "winking, and
blinking, and squinting," as he was used afterwards to say, "as if the
devil had him by the pastern." It was a spectacle which the nerves of
even Tom Bruce could not stand; it did what armed Indians could not
do,--it frightened him out of his propriety. Forgetting his situation,
his comrades, the savages,--forgetting everything but the fact of his
having administered the last correction of Lynch-law to the object of his
terror, he sprang on his feet, and roaring, "By the etarnal devil, here's
Ralph Stackpole!" he took to his heels, running, in his confusion, right
in the direction of the enemy, among whom he would have presently found
himself, but for a shot, by which, before he had run six yards, the
unfortunate youth was struck to the earth.

The exclamation, and the sight of Ralph himself, who also rose to follow
the young leader upon what he deemed a rush against the foe, electrified
the whole body of the Regulators, who were immediately thrown into
confusion; of which the savages took the same advantage they had taken of
Bruce's agitation, firing upon them as they rose, and then rushing upon
them to end the fray, before they could recover their wits or spirits. It
needed but this, and the fall of their leader, to render the disorder of
the young men irretrievable; and, accordingly, in less than a moment they
were seen,--all, at least, who were not already disabled,--f