ed by
six hundred fleet-footed Indians with arrows and javelins, and with
their feet and limbs protected from thorns and brambles by moccasins and
deerskin leggins.

"Save yourself if you can," said the chief in the Blackfoot language as
he set him loose. Colter sprung forward with almost supernatural speed.
Instantly the Indian's war-whoop burst from the lips of his six hundred
pursuers. They were upon a plain about six miles in breadth abounding
with the prickly pear. At the end of the plain there was Jefferson
river, a stream but a few rods wide. Every step Colter took, bounding
forward with almost the speed of an antelope, his naked feet were torn
by the thorns. The physical effort he made was so great that the blood
gushed from his nostrils, and flowed profusely down over his chest. He
had half crossed the plain before he ventured to glance over his
shoulder upon his pursuers, who, with hideous yells, like baying
bloodhounds, seemed close upon his heels. Much to his relief he
perceived that he had greatly distanced most of the Indians, though one
stout savage, with a javelin in his hand, was within a hundred yards of
him.

Hope reanimated him. Regardless of lacerated feet and blood, he pressed
forward with renovated vigor until he arrived within about a mile of the
river, when he found that his pursuer was gaining rapidly upon him. He
could hear his breathing and the sound of his footsteps, and expected
every moment to feel the sharp javelin piercing his back.

In his desperation he suddenly stopped, turned round and stretching out
both of his arms, rushed, in his utter defencelessness, upon the armed
warrior. The savage, startled by this unexpected movement and by the
bloody appearance of his victim, stumbled and fell, breaking his spear
as he attempted to throw it. Colter instantly snatched up the pointed
part, and pinned his foe, quivering with convulsions to the earth.

Again he plunged forward on the race for life. The Indians, as they came
up, stopped for a moment around the body of their slain comrade, and
then, with hideous yells, resumed the pursuit. The stream was fringed
with a dense growth of cotton-wood trees. Colter rushed through them,
thus concealed from observation, and seeing near by a large raft of
drift timber, he plunged into the water, dived under the raft and
fortunately succeeded in getting his head above the water between the
logs, where smaller wood covered him to the depth of several