lackfeet except
one; but that one was overhauling him, and was within the hundred
yards: a tall, fast young warrior, with a spear in his right hand and
his blanket streaming from his left arm and shoulder.

Exhausted, Trapper Colter about decided to give up. He had done his
best. So he ran more slowly; and when he thought that the Indian was
about to spear him he turned abruptly, and spread both his arms, in
surrender, and gasped, in Crow language:

"Do not kill."

He took the Indian quite by surprise, for a gory, frightful sight he
was. But the Indian's-mind had been made up. He saw the scalp, his
hard-won prize; and poising his spear in both hands he charged on, to
lunge. He, too, was wellnigh all in, and stumbled as he tried to
thrust. John managed to grab the spear near the head, and hold it off,
and they swayed and tugged. The spear broke, and the Indian fell flat.
Trapper Colter stabbed him with the point, snatched the blanket, and
leaving him lying there was away again.

A tremendous yell echoed from the Indians who had been watching; but
now filled with hope once more he ran, he said, "as if he had not run a
mile." Ahorse and afoot the whole Blackfoot band were tearing after.

He reached the Madison in the lead. He had run his five miles, but he
had not won his life. There was to be no mercy for him, now that he
had killed a warrior. Would the Madison save him? Beyond, there was
only another open stretch, to be crossed, and a high mountain to be
climbed.

He did not know exactly what to do, as he crashed through the willows
bordering the little river. Then he saw a very large beaver-house,
like a small haystack rising ten feet above the water, in a dammed
pond. He plunged for it, and commenced to swim. If he might manage to
get into that beaver-house before he was sighted--! He had quick wit,
did John Colter.

The water was some ten feet deep, at the house. He held his breath and
took a deep, deep dive. Luck was with him, to reward him. He groped,
near the bottom, and struck the entrance; got his head through, and his
body, and wriggled on--perhaps to stick fast inside and drown! No! As
he had wildly hoped, the house was of two stories and big enough for
him. The second floor was high and dry, for the beavers to lie upon;
and the hole up through it was wide enough so that he could support his
shoulders and breathe. Here he panted and waited, in the darkness.

Presently he could h