identally fell from his hand, and in his endeavour to
catch it, he knocked it within a few feet of Sneak's head. He stepped
carelessly aside, and stooped down for it. A strangling and gushing
sound was heard, and falling prostrate, he died without a groan. Sneak
had nearly severed his head from his body at one blow with his
hunting-knife.

At this juncture Mary sprang from her hiding-place. Her voice reached
the ears of her father, but before he could run to her assistance, the
chiefs loud tones rang through the forest. Boone and the rest sprang
forward, and fired upon the savages under the spreading tree. At the
second discharge the Indians gave way, and while Col. Cooper, the
oarsmen, and the neighbours that had joined the party in the morning,
pursued the flying foe, Boone and the remainder ran towards the fallen
trunk where Mary had been concealed, but approaching in different
directions. Glenn was the first to rush upon the chief, and it was his
ball that whizzed so near the Indian's head when he bore away the
shrieking maiden. The rest only fired in the direction of the log, not
thinking that Mary had left her covert. They soon met at the fallen
tree, under which was the pit, all except Glenn, who sprang forward in
pursuit of the chief, and Sneak, who had made a wide circuit for the
purpose of reaching the scene of action from an opposite direction,
entirely regardless of the danger of being shot by his friends.

[Illustration: "It is your father, my poor child!" said Roughgrove,
pressing the girl to his heart.--P. 165]

"She's gone! she's gone!" exclaimed Roughgrove, looking aghast at the
vacated pit under the fallen trunk. "But we will have her yet," said
Boone, as he heard Glenn discharge a pistol a few paces apart in the
bushes. The report was followed by a yell, not from the chief, but
Sneak, and the next moment the rifle of the latter was likewise heard.
Still the Indian was not dispatched, for the instant afterwards his
tomahawk, which was hurled without effect, came sailing over the
bushes, and penetrated a tree hard by, some fifteen or twenty feet
above the earth, where it entered the wood with such force that it
remained firmly fixed. Now succeeded a struggle--a violent blow was
heard--the fall of the Indian, and all was comparatively still. A
minute afterwards, Sneak emerged from the thicket, bearing the
inanimate body of Mary in his arms, and followed by Glenn.

"Is she dead? Oh, she's dead!" cried