scoundrel must be
concealed behind some of these trees, and may yet be secured. We are not
safe while he goes at large."

"Would you set a cloud to chase the wind?" returned the disappointed
scout; "I heard the imp brushing over the dry leaves, like a black
snake, and blinking a glimpse of him, just over ag'in yon big pine, I
pulled as it might be on the scent; but 'twouldn't do! and yet for a
reasoning aim, if anybody but myself had touched the trigger, I should
call it a quick sight; and I may be accounted to have experience in
these matters, and one who ought to know. Look at this sumach; its
leaves are red, though everybody knows the fruit is in the yellow
blossom in the month of July!"

"'Tis the blood of Le Subtil! he is hurt, and may yet fall!"

"No, no," returned the scout, in decided disapprobation of this opinion,
"I rubbed the bark off a limb, perhaps, but the creature leaped the
longer for it. A rifle bullet acts on a running animal, when it barks
him, much the same as one of your spurs on a horse; that is, it quickens
motion, and puts life into the flesh, instead of taking it away. But
when it cuts the ragged hole, after a bound or two, there is, commonly,
a stagnation of further leaping, be it Indian or be it deer!"

"We are four able bodies, to one wounded man!"

"Is life grievous to you?" interrupted the scout. "Yonder red devil
would draw you within swing of the tomahawks of his comrades, before you
were heated in the chase. It was an unthoughtful act in a man who has so
often slept with the war-whoop ringing in the air, to let off his piece
within sound of an ambushment! But then it was a natural temptation!
'twas very natural! Come, friends, let us move our station, and in such
fashion, too, as will throw the cunning of a Mingo on a wrong scent, or
our scalps will be drying in the wind in front of Montcalm's marquee,
ag'in this hour to-morrow."

This appalling declaration, which the scout uttered with the cool
assurance of a man who fully comprehended, while he did not fear to face
the danger, served to remind Heyward of the importance of the charge
with which he himself had been intrusted. Glancing his eyes around, with
a vain effort to pierce the gloom that was thickening beneath the
leafy arches of the forest, he felt as if, cut off from human aid,
his unresisting companions would soon lie at the entire mercy of those
barbarous enemies, who, like beasts of prey, only waited till the
gatheri