had flung him away sheer over the brink of the
steep. Hastily snatching up one of the Indian's rifles, Burl ran to the
brow of the hill, and taking deliberate aim at the rolling body far down
there, fired. Up came ringing a cry--a death-yell, so it would seem, so
fierce it was, and wild and drear. The moment thereafter, now rolling
with frightful rapidity, over the river bank vanished the Wyandot
giant.

Chapter XI.

HOW LITTLE BUSHIE FIGURED IN THE FIGHT.

But Bushie--where was poor little Bushie all this time? The moment the
fight had begun the boy, to keep clear of the conflicting giants, had
run with the speed of a frightened fawn to the shelter of the
neighboring thicket. Here, crouched down and peering out through the
openings of his covert, he had watched with fearful interest how
manfully and against such desperate odds his brave, his faithful Burl
had battled for his deliverance--his little heart sinking within him
whenever the combat seemed to be going against his champion. And when
the two giants, still locked together in the death hug, had rolled to
the foot of the hill, and he had seen his darling Burl's bare, yellow
soles, with a wide-wheeling fling, go vanishing over the river-bank,
then had the poor little fellow given up all as lost and cried as if his
heart would break. But when, some minutes after, he had spied the
bear-skin cap he knew so well heaving above the purple iron-weeds far
down there, then had he plucked up heart again. Now that the fight
seemed ended, with victory won and deliverance wrought, he was on the
point of running out, in the joy and thankfulness of the moment, to
seize his precious old chum by the hand, when a new danger, from an
altogether unexpected quarter, suddenly presented itself and checked him
in the act.

The Fighting Nigger was still standing on the brow of the hill, and with
his empty gun still sighting the river-bank where Black Thunder had
vanished, when all in the self-same instant he heard a cry from his
little master, a growl from Grumbo, and the venomous hiss of a tomahawk
which grazingly passed his nose and sunk with a vengeful quiver in the
trunk of a tree beside him. Wheeling about, he saw the young Indian
confronting him, and with his scalping-knife brandished aloft, in the
act of making a panther-like spring upon him. The bullet which had
passed through the body of the grim savage had pierced the young brave's
left arm and spent its remaining f