ck rocks bathed by the shining waters of the
river.

"Can the red warriors only scalp dead bodies?" added Pepe with a
contemptuous laugh. "Are the Apaches like vultures who only attack the
dead? Advance then, dogs, vultures, women without courage!" shouted he,
at the sight of their enemies, who were now rapidly regaining the bank.
Suddenly, however, he noticed a body floating on its back, whose bright
eyes showed that it was not a corpse, as the extended arms and
motionless body seemed to indicate.

"Don Fabian, my rifle! there is the `Blackbird' pretending to be dead
and floating down the stream."

Pepe took the rifle from Fabian, and aimed at the floating body, but not
a muscle stirred. The hunter lowered his rifle. "I was wrong," said
he, aloud, "the white men do not, like the Indians, waste their powder
on dead bodies."

The body still floated, with outspread legs and extended arms. Pepe
again raised his rifle and again lowered it. Then, when he thought that
he had paid off anguish for anguish to the Indian chief, he fired, and
the body floated no longer.

"Have you killed him?" asked Bois-Rose.

"No, I only wished to break his shoulder bone, that he may always have
cause to remember the shudder he gave, and the treason he proposed to
me. If he were dead, he would still float."

"You might have done better to have killed him. But what is to be done
now? I hoped to finish with these demons, and now our work is still to
be done. We cannot cross the river to attack them."

"It is the best thing we can do."

"With Fabian, I cannot decide to do it, or I should be now on the bank
opposite, where you know as well as I do they still are breathing their
infernal vengeance."

The Spaniard shrugged his shoulders with stoical resignation.

"Doubtless," said he, "but we must decide either to fly or to stay."

"Carramba!" continued he, "if we two were alone we would gain the
opposite bank in a minute; the seven who are left would catch us no
doubt, but we should come out of it, as we have out of more difficult
situations."

"It would be better than to stay here like foxes in their hole."

"I agree: but Fabian! and the unlucky scalped man, whom we cannot
abandon thus to the mercy of the wretches who have already treated him
so cruelly. Let us wait at least until the moon has set, and darkness
comes on."

And the old man hung his head with an air of discouragement--which made
a painful impression on t