y barrel.

As I caught sight of them, the Indian was in the act of springing
forward and delivering a tremendous blow; but Rayburn most skilfully
parried this blow by throwing out his rifle, still retained in his left
hand, in such a manner and with such force that the Indian's arm--at
the same time striking and being struck with the iron barrel--was broken
just above the wrist. He gave a yell of pain, as he well might; but he
was a plucky fellow, and instead of dropping his club he only shifted it
to his right hand. He never had a chance to strike again with it; for in
that same instant Rayburn swung his revolver at arm's-length through the
air and brought it down on his head with a sound so muffled and so
hollow that I can liken it only to the staving-in of the head of a full
cask. For a moment, while Rayburn drew back to strike again, the
Indian's body swayed heavily; and then all his muscles relaxed, and he
fell heavily and limply to the ground--while his brains spurted out from
the ghastly trench made by that mighty blow from back to front across
the entire top of his skull.

VIII.

AFTER THE FIGHT.

Rayburn stood panting for a moment over the Indian's body; and then,
having satisfied himself by a look around among our fallen enemies that
every one of them was either dead or dying, he stooped down beside the
stream to drink from it, and then to bathe an ugly gash in his forehead
made by a spear thrust that luckily had glanced aside.

Indeed, we all had wounds or bruises by which we were likely to
remember our fight for a good many days to come. In addition to the cut
on his forehead, Rayburn had an arm badly bruised by a crack from a
club; Young had a cut in the calf of his leg that must have been made by
one of the Indians after he had fallen wounded; Fray Antonio had the
slight cut in his arm that he received in rescuing Pablo; a blow from a
club on my shoulder had completely disabled my left arm, and my head was
beginning to ache from the wound in my forehead where the arrow had
nipped me; and Pablo, by a square knock-down blow on the head that
tumbled him among the rocks, had a bad gash in his cheek and was bruised
all over. And yet the very first thing that boy did when the fight was
ended--being still dazed, no doubt, by the blow on his head--was to play
a bit of "Rory O'More" on his mouth-organ in order to make sure that his
beloved "instrumentito" had not been injured by his fall. The sound of