d leaf fluttered to the ground. Almost
instantly there was another shot, and a blue wisp of smoke rose from the
red-bud bushes, where Tom was. The horses whinnied, there was a rustle
in the cane, and silence. Weldon bent over.

"My God!" he whispered hoarsely, "he hit one. Tom hit one."

I felt Polly Ann's hand on my face.

"Davy dear," she said, "are ye hurt?"

"No," said I, dazed, and wondering why Weldon had not been shot long ago
as he slumbered. I was burning to climb the bank and ask him whether he
had seen the Indian fall.

Again there was silence,--a silence even more awful than before. The sun
crept higher, the magic of his rays turning the creek from black to
crystal, and the birds began to sing again. And still there was no sign
of the treacherous enemy that lurked about us. Could Tom get back? I
glanced at Polly Ann. The same question was written in her yearning
eyes, staring at the spot where the gray of his hunting shirt showed
through the bushes at the bend. Suddenly her hand tightened on mine.
The hunting shirt was gone!

After that, in the intervals when my terror left me, I tried to speculate
upon the plan of the savages. Their own numbers could not be great, and
yet they must have known from our trace how few we were. Scanning the
ground, I noted that the forest was fairly clean of undergrowth on both
sides of us. Below, the stream ran straight, but there were growths of
cane and briers. Looking up, I saw Weldon faced about. It was the
obvious move.

But where had Tom gone?

Next my eye was caught by a little run fringed with bushes that curved
around the cane near the bend. I traced its course, unconsciously, bit
by bit, until it reached the edge of a bank not fifty feet away.

All at once my breath left me. Through the tangle of bramble stems at
the mouth of the run, above naked brown shoulders there glared at me,
hideously streaked with red, a face. Had my fancy lied? I stared again
until my eyes were blurred, now tortured by doubt, now so completely
convinced that my fingers almost released the trigger,--for I had thrown
the sights into line over the tree. I know not to this day whether I
shot from determination or nervousness. My shoulder bruised by the kick,
the smoke like a veil before my face, it was some moments ere I knew that
the air was full of whistling bullets; and then the gun was torn from my
hands, and I saw Polly Ann ramming in a new charge.

"The pistol, Davy," she cried