meant as a command for
none to fire: the Shawanoe was cornered and they meant to make him
prisoner.

It need not be said that under the worst conditions the capture of the
young warrior would have been no easy matter. He could fight like a
tiger when driven into corner, and his great quickness availed him
against superior strength. He had bounded out of more desperate
situations than any person of double his years, and, knowing that no
mercy was to be expected from the warlike Pawnees, it must have been a
strange conjunction of disasters that could compel him to throw up his
hands and yield.

Deerfoot had crossed one stream on his way to the Pawnee camp, and it
was no task to swim one of double the width; but the skillful swimmer
can advance only at a slow rate through the water, and, before he could
reach the other shore, a half dozen Pawnees would be on the bank in the
rear, waiting for him to reappear. He was a master of the natatorial
art, but he was not amphibious, and soon would have to come to the
surface or die. The watchers would be quick to detect him, and their
position was so much the superior of the fugitive that his capture was
inevitable.

Suddenly Deerfoot seemed to see that there was but the one thing to do;
turning again, he faced the stream which was but a few rods distant, and
ran toward it. The undergrowth was abundant, but his head and shoulders
were seen, as under the swift doublings of his limbs, they shot forward
as if borne on the back of an invisible express engine.

The thrilling run lasted but a second or two; then, having reached the
margin of the stream, the fugitive was seen to gather himself and rise
like a bird on the wing. He had made a prodigious leap toward the other
shore.

The Pawnees uttered several cries of exultation, for no doubt remained
of their success. For one instant the figure was suspended in mid air,
and then it descended. The pursuers heard the loud splash, and were on
the spot before the most skillful swimmer could have taken three strokes
or forced his body an arm's length through the water.

The leading Pawnee saw the ripples made in the swift current by the
Shawanoe, whose body was out of sight, for he had not been given time in
which to rise. As the current was too powerful to permit any one to swim
against it (besides which such an expenditure of strength could gain
nothing), it followed that the youth must either come up near the spot
where he went down