ong, bronze arm reached out from above, and a
painted face glowered at us from the very roots where Weldon had lain.
That moment I took to be my last, and in it I seemed to taste all
eternity, I heard but faintly a noise beyond. It was the shock of the
heavy Indian falling on Polly Ann and me as we cowered under the trunk,
and even then there was an instant that we stood gazing at him as at a
worm writhing in the clay. It was she who fired the pistol and made the
great hole in his head, and so he twitched and died. After that a
confusion of shots, war-whoops, a vision of two naked forms flying from
tree to tree towards the cane, and then--God be praised--Tom's voice
shouting:--

"Polly Ann! Polly Ann!"

Before she had reached the top of the bank Tom had her in his arms, and a
dozen tall gray figures leaped the six feet into the stream and stopped.
My own eyes turned with theirs to see the body of poor Weldon lying face
downward in the water. But beyond it a tragedy awaited me. Defiant,
immovable, save for the heaving of his naked chest, the savage who had
killed him stood erect with folded arms facing us. The smoke cleared
away from a gleaming rifle-barrel, and the brave staggered and fell and
died as silent as he stood, his feathers making ripples in the stream.
It was cold-blooded, if you like, but war in those days was to the death,
and knew no mercy. The tall backwoodsman who had shot him waded across
the stream, and in the twinkling of an eye seized the scalp-lock and ran
it round with his knife, holding up the bleeding trophy with a shout.
Staggering to my feet, I stretched myself, but I had been cramped so long
that I tottered and would have fallen had not Tom's hand steadied me.

"Davy!" he cried. "Thank God, little Davy! the varmints didn't get ye."

"And you, Tom?" I answered, looking up at him, bewildered with happiness.

"They was nearer than I suspicioned when I went off," he said, and looked
at me curiously. "Drat the little deevil," he said affectionately, and
his voice trembled, "he took care of Polly Ann, I'll warrant."

He carried me to the top of the bank, where we were surrounded by the
whole band of backwoodsmen.

"That he did!" cried Polly Ann, "and fetched a redskin yonder as clean as
you could have done it, Tom."

"The little deevil!" exclaimed Tom again.

I looked up, burning with this praise from Tom (for I had never thought
of praise nor of anything save his happiness and Polly Ann's)