the logs, now into the bushes,
then driving right through the fire, and scattering the smoldering
embers broadcast over the ground, and everywhere plowing up great
furrows with their heels in the mellow soil. To the negro, with his
prodigious strength of arm, it was an easy matter to toss up the Indian
from the ground; but when he would essay to fetch the final fling, the
nimble savage, let his legs be ever so high in the air and wide apart,
was always sure to bring the very foot down to the very place to stay
his fall, though as quickly to jerk it up again, to shun the leveling
sweep of those enormous black feet, so persistently making at his
ankles. The combat had waged for many seconds without any decided
advantage gained on either side, when, chancing to glance over Black
Thunder's shoulder, Burl spied a new danger threatening him from quite
an unexpected quarter.

Though shot through the body and mortally wounded, the grim savage had
so far recovered his strength as to be able to drag himself to the
nearest rifle, and now, with the weapon laid on the log to steady his
aim, was covering the combatants therewith, awaiting the moment when,
without danger to his comrade, he could let fly, and thus beforehand
revenge his own death. Black Thunder perceiving this as soon, it became
at once the aim of each to keep the other exposed to the leveled
weapon--the negro to hold the Indian between it and himself as a shield,
the Indian to hold the negro sideways to it long enough to let his
wounded comrade steady his aim and fire. Time and again did each whirl
his antagonist round, point-blank to the threatened danger; yet as often
did the other regain the lost advantage. Burning to revenge himself
before his feeble spark of life went out, the dying savage, with his
fiery eyes glaring along the barrel, continued to shift his rifle from
side to side as the struggle shifted from place to place. The red giant
was on the point of covering the black giant between a tree and a log,
there for the telling instant to hold him fast, when a fierce growl was
heard in the thicket behind him. The next moment, swift to his master's
call, far swifter than would seem from the length of time it has taken
to describe the combat up to this point, the brindled dog leaped like a
little lion into the arena. No stopping to smell noses, or count them,
either, but with Bonaparte-like contempt of the cut-and-dried in
warfare, right at the throat of the wo