che scrambled over the barricade, and
started at full speed up the pathway, but he had no more than fairly
started, than he fell headlong to the ground, pierced through and
through by the rifle fired almost in his face. Almost the same instant a
second appeared, when he tumbled backward, driven thence by the revolver
of the hunter, who was as cool as an iceberg. This stemmed the tide, the
crowding warriors hurrying back before the lion that lay in their path.
All this was the work of a very few seconds, but it was scarcely
effected, when a cry from the lad on top of the rock showed that he had
discovered his danger. The next instant, white-faced and scared, he came
dashing down the path, shouting to the hunter:

"Oh, Dick, save me! save me! there's an Indian after me!"

The savage, however, did not follow, and Dick, as the lad rushed into
his arms, shook him rather roughly, and said:

"Keep still! Why do you make such a thunderin' noise?" The lad speedily
controlled himself, and then the scout placed his revolver in his hand,
and said: "Stand right here, and the minute a redskin shows himself,
crack him over. Can you do it?"

"Haven't I proved it?"

"Yes; but you made such a racket here that I've lost faith in you."

"Try me and see."

Adding a few hasty words, the scout left him, and hurried to the top of
the hill, without pausing to approach with his usual precaution.

His expectation was to encounter the redskin at once upon reaching it,
but, to his surprise, he was nowhere to be seen, and he paused somewhat
bewildered.

"I wonder whether he's got scart 'cause none of the rest followed him,
and jumped overboard--"

At that instant something descended like a ponderous rock, and he
realized that he was in the grip of the very redskin about whom he had
been meditating. The miscreant had managed to crouch behind a rocky
protuberance, and then made a sudden leap upon the shoulders of the
hunter. As the Apache's scheme had miscarried thus far, and instead of
being backed up by the other warriors, he was left alone to fight it
out, he did not pause to attempt to make him prisoner, but went into the
scrimmage with the purpose of ending it as briefly as possible. As he
landed upon the shoulders of Dick the latter caught the gleam of his
knife, and grasped his wrist just in time. Fearful that it would be
wrenched from him, the Apache managed to give his confined hand a flirt,
which threw it beyond the reach of both