ich depended the successful result of his stratagem, and that the
steep hill-side to which he had unwittingly shifted the struggle, gave
the long and nimble savage a decided advantage over him, Burl determined
to shift again. Desperate though it might seem, he would, by rolling
with him thither, bear his antagonist bodily down to the foot of the
hill, where on level ground once more, as he trusted, he should still be
able to make his stratagem go. To this intent putting forth all his huge
strength, he grappled yet closer with the Indian, locking his legs
around him as well as his arms. Then with a heave on his part, like the
roll of a buffalo-bull, unwittingly seconded by a big flounce on the
part of the savage, down the precipitous slope did these redoubtable
giants, leaving their wake to be traced by the weeds laid flat to the
hill, and hugging yet tighter and tighter, go rolling and whirling and
tumbling, over and over, each uppermost, undermost, all in a wink--till
over the river bank whirlingly pitching, they dropped, with a splash too
terrific to tell or conceive, into water full twenty feet deep. And a
smooth, round, ponderous stone, which the force of their downward career
had pushed from its seat on the hill, came rolling and leaping behind
them with frightfully growing momentum, and tumbled in after
them--plump! Verily, the wheel of fortune had never before made so many
turns in so short a time! Its axle fairly smoked as it rolled into the
water.

Tightly locked together in the mortal hug, as were the two warriors when
they vanished beneath the shivered mirror of the stream, the next moment
when the plumed crest of the red giant and the shaggy top of the black
giant heaved above the surface, it was found that they had put full
thirty feet of the river between them. Dashing the water from his eyes,
and seeing that the chances of war were still about nip and tuck between
them, the Fighting Nigger, with ardor all undampened by his ducking,
began, with long oar-like sweeps of his arms, manfully pulling again for
the foe; but too prudent to trust himself again within the ireful grasp
of the bushy-headed brave, and thinking, doubtless, that his
vantage-ground lay elsewhere than in water twenty feet deep, Black
Thunder began as manfully pulling for land. The negro had proved the
stronger wrestler; but the Indian, proving the swifter swimmer, was the
first to land, and to prevent his antagonist from landing, began beat