sibility of detection.

If the fool had but known the woodcraft of the youth against whom he was
so eager to pit himself, he would have turned and fled from the spot as
from a plague; but he had never heard the name of Deerfoot, and little
dreamed of the skill of the extraordinary youth.

The warrior stooped, crept, leaped, and stole through the wood with a
celerity that was astonishing. Within a very short time after beginning
the movement, he had described one-fourth of the circle and gained the
view he wished. It must be remembered, too, that he had kept the boulder
under such close surveillance as to be morally certain the youth could
not shift his position without being observed.

But to his amazement he saw nothing of his victim. The flat slope and
the leafy ground were free from anything resembling a human being. He
stood peering from behind the tree, and at his wit's end to know what it
meant. He held his rifle so that the hammer could be raised the moment
the necessity came, and he must have felt that the wiser course was for
him to leave the spot without further search.

Probably such would have been his course had he not heard a most
alarming sound directly behind him. It was the faint cough of a person
seeking to clear his throat. The Indian turned like a flash, and saw the
dusky youth a rod distant, holding his bow loosely in his right hand,
while his terrible left was drawn back over his shoulder, the fingers
clenching the handle of his tomahawk. His position was precisely that of
one who was on the very point of launching the deadly missile which
would have cloven the skull, as though made of card-board. He had taken
the posture, and then uttered the slight cough with a view of "calling
the attention" of the party of the first part to the fact, and he
succeeded. The elder was in the position of the hunter who while seeking
the tiger awoke to the fact that the tiger was seeking him.

The warrior, whose face was daubed with red, black and yellow paint, was
literally struck dumb. He had been engaged in many an encounter with
strange Indians, but never had the affray been introduced in a more
favorable manner to himself, and never had he been more utterly
overwhelmed.

He saw that the youth was merely holding his tomahawk; the very second
it was needed, he could drive it into his chest or brain. He was too
proud to ask for mercy, for he had no thought it would be granted. He
could only face his master a