The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 6, 1903, Page 2

1 its wide open glassy eyes. this background fit for the stag: f a scene in Dante Alighier! comedy,the looming mountains, the air graying on to dusk, and the solemn forest aisles full of Jurking shad- you are to picture the old frontiers- bareheaded and on his knees, pour- & forth his soul in all the sonorous of Holy Writ, now in thanksgiv- d now in most terrible beseechings that all the vials of heaven's wrath might ired out upon our enemies. face, commonly a leithep mask to the man behind it, was now ablaze w he fire of zealotry; and, truly, in t sm-fits of supplication, he 1 that is most awe-inspiring nnerving, asking but a little stretch imagination to figure him as one se old iron-hard prophets of denun- back to earth to be herald of was close a 1 nightfall when the 0ld men rose from his knees and, with the rising. put off the beadsman and put on the shrewd old Indlan fighter. Fol- lowed some hurried counselings as to how we should proceed, and in these the hun- e pace for us as his age and vast experience in woodcraft gave him leave His plan had all the merit of simplicity. we had the horses, Richard's approach from the head of valley became at once the of any. So Ephraim Yeates t we betake ourselves to the to the head of that ra- e Catawba and T had dis- uld leave the horses red, make our way ne and, with the stream for follow the sunken valley to the end. Once on the having given the alarm, ee the captives under darkness; and our retreat ley would be far less hazardous »en flight by way of the unex- powder train had used e old backwoodsman: but nel- T would agree to this in that while we were t in the roundabout advance ild be leaving Margery wholly at the mercy of the Baronet. and that every hour of delay was full of hideous menace to he ence proposed that three f out the hunter's plas fourth to take the T harred stick crew, and the stream e a blow for r ar lady's honor in case of need # thing to be done, and I am w Dick.” said I. This was before E: Yeates could object “Should there 4 for any, two blades will be better comes to blows and we taken, Yeates and the c ift to do without s would guess, the old I m this halving of ou force we overpersuaded him we were t e should prove noola were to when and how 1 drew the ivate. —if we re like to be— r of helping us r's welght the rescue You'll promise me feat} women ye can rest easy on that, ve go for to let of our'n upsot the fat ck, he is ridic’lous foolish ez'a tis a lovesick gal.” part and so we went e gathering dark- til the lashings of cut and the powder il of both as Ep re- —Jess'n =p acanoola would ed into the river. As the dead Indlans, the he would let them ride some convenient but I mistrusted Ip and out of we were safl we took the river's edge 1. keeping well under our way cautiously vere stopped by orrent of the under- Here we turned short the margin of the bar- ng its course across presently to the northern ring cavern But now the night was fully come and in the wooded defile we could place ous- se by the sense of touch. ready, Dick?’ said I as 2 man with a shaking ag be,” he gritted out. “This dog's work we have been doing of late has broug old curse upon me and I am > my teeth loose.” “Let alone, then. Another cold’ the death of you.” stubbornly. Wait but “No.” sald be. yte and the : fever will be on me; then 1 shall be fighting-fit for anything that comes.” So we waited, and T could hear his teeth like castanets. Having had a fever more than once in the Turk- aigning, 1 a fellow-feeling ad, knowing well how the of a nge into cold water ake him shrink e time he felt for my hand and had “I'm warm enough mow, in all con- science be sald, and with that we slipped into the stream. Twas 2 disapnointment of the grateful d the water no more than mid- The current was swift and with the pebbiy bottom to give good ting ‘twas possible to stem it slowiy. Laying hold of each other for the better breast of the flood we felt our wa) to the middle of the pool; felt for the low-sprung cavern arch, and for that scanty lifting of {t where we hoped to find head room between stone above and stream below. found the highest part of the arch after some blind groping, and making Jowly obeisance to the gods of the under- werld, began a snail-like progress into the gurgling throat of the spewing rock- monster. 1 here confess to you, my dears, that, had 1 loved my sweet lady less, no earth- Iy power could have driven me into that dismal stifing place. All my life long I have had 2 most vaspeakable horror of Jow-roofed caverns and squeezing pas- sages that cramp a man for breath and or the room to draw it in; and when the suffocating madness came upon me, as it aid when we were well jammed in this cursed horror-hole, 1 was right glad to have my love for Margery to make an outward seeming man of me; glad, too, that my dear lad was close behind to shame me into going on. after all, the passage through the of the dragon was vastly more terrifying than difficult. Once weil within the closely @rawn upper lip we could brace our backs against the roof aod so have a purchase for the foothold. Better =till, when we had passed a pike's Jength beyond the 1ip the breathing space above the water grew wider and higher till at length we could stand erect and come abreast to lock arms and push on side by side. From that the stream broadened and grew shallower with every step, and pres- ently we could hear it on ahead babbling over the stopes like any peaceful wood- jand brook. Then suddenly the dank and noisome air of the cavern gave place to the pine-scented breath-of the forest; and, looking straight up, we could see the twinkling stars shining down from a marrow breadth of sky. —_— CHAPTER XXVIL HOW A KING'S TROOPER BECAME A WASTREL. Dick pressed closer to me, and I could feel him drinking in deep draughts of the grateful outer air. “What new wonder is this?" he would ask, with something akin to awe in his voice; but we must needs grope this way &nd that to feel out the answer with our finger tips. ‘When the answer was found, the mys- tery of the lost trafl was solved most simply. As we made out, we were in & deep crevice cut crosswise by the stream, which, issuing from a yawning cavern in the farther wall, was quickly enguifed again by that lower archway we had just traversed. In some upheaval of the earthquake age a huge slice of the moun- tain’s face had split off and settled away from the parent cliff to leave a deep clert open to the sky.- One end of this crevice chasm—that toward the upland valley—was choked and filled by the de- of later landslides, but tae lower d was open. Through this lower end, as we made no_doubt, the powder train had come, turning from the Indian path in the gorge up the bed of the barrier stream, turning again at the outer cavern moutn to squeeze in single file between the thickly matted undergrowth and the clif’s face, and so to pass around the Split-off mass and come into the crevice rift. How the sharp eyes of the old hunter, and those of the Catawba as weli, had missed the finding of this squcezing place where the cavalcade had left the stream bed, we could never guess; but on the chance that we might yet need to know all the crooks and turnings of this outlet, we felt our way quite around the masking cliff and down to the stream's edge in the gorge. 'hat done we were ready for a farther advance, and clambering back into the crevice We once more took the stream for ‘our guide and were presently deep in the upon us natural unnel piercing the mountain proper. ‘I'nis extension of the subter- ranean waterway proved to be a noble cavern, wide and high enough to pass a loaded wain, as we determined by toss- ing pebles against the arching roof. None the less, ‘twas full of crooks and wind- gs; and in the saarpest elbow of tnem all, where we were like to lose our way by biundering into one of the many branching side passages, Richard stopped me with @ hand thrust back. ortly!” he cautioned; “here are their vedettes Just beyond the crooking elbow the low from a tiny fire gone to ed us two Indian sentries set ne puss. Dick drew his clay- more, but he was chilling again, and tne band that grasped the great blade was shaking as with a palsy. Yet he would mutter, as the teeth-chattering suffered him: What say you, J. Shall we rush here’s naught else for it.” And a gritting oatn: “On, damn ng ed back that we would wait He was loth to but, as it chanced, ¢ saved our lives in e paused, hugging elbow, the ntries were pe was better fit necesity admit the the mon tarred with flaring flambeaux the way for a hasting rabble of and had we been entangled in iggle with the two sentinels we been taken red-handed we had to make the quick- to save ourselves. In the same both remembered the narrow breath w side passage t d in which we were nigh to losi way, and into this we plunged kless of possible pit- f; We were no more than safely out of the main corridor when the runners, some score of them, as we gue: 4 trooped past our covert in full cry, leav- ing us ha!f smothered in the smoky trail of their pitch-pine flambeaux. Now what a-devil has set this hor- net's nest of theirs abuzz so suddenly?” 1 whispered, when the smoke-choke gave ak without coughing to us liberty ourselves. anc y should ha he Great Bear and his pea yonder on the trace—which same did not. So when the: al camp there is the devil to pa pitch hot. God help our ‘tough old hraim and the Catawba if these blood- ds win out in time to overtake m ™ Aye,” said I; and then we crept out of the dodge-hole and made ready to go about our business with the sentries. But when we came (o peer again he crooking elbow it would seem hurrying search party had battle for us. he watch fire to light tle circle in the the wi were goney We a guess that they had joinell the 1d s0 we pressed forward 1 of embers and into the s beyond. ty paces further it came to i man's buff the rocky and measured by the trip- he h ack dept pings and s ngs 'twas a long Bab- bath day’s journey to that final turn in 1h~ great earth-burrow whence we 1d e glimmering of the enemy’s camp- in the sunken vall N+ e praised quoth Richard this most fer 1 “Another hour in cursed kennel with the fever on me and I should be a_yammering loose-wit.” And 1. too, was glad enough to see the stars again, and to be at large beneath them. Emerging from the subterranean way, we held to the camp side of the stream? making an ample circuit to the left to come down upon the enemy's position from the wooded slope behind the encamp- ment. We met no let or hindrance, in this approach. Secure in their strong- held, the Indians had no patrols out: and as for the Englishmen, every mother's son of them, it seemed, was basking in the light of a great fire built before the ine-bought shelters. pF‘a\'orsd v a dense thicketing of Iaurelf. w e a near-hand reconnaissance O T e wiewam which held our dear lady. As 1 have'said. this was pitched in the thinning of the forest which cov- ered the steep slope behind the encamp- ment, and so was the farthest remoyed from the stream, and from the Indian disposed in a_half-moon at the edge. Here all was quict as the grav and the clamor of the Indian camp came softened by the distance to a low monotonous humming like the buz- zing of a beehive. The flap of the tepee lodge was closely drawn and the bit of fire before it had burned out to a heap of white-ashed embers. “They are safe as yet, thank God! says Richard, heaving a most palpable sigh of relief. Then. with the fever in his veins to whip his natural ardor into hasty action: *'Twill be hours before Eph and the Catawba can come in by your upper ravine, Jack. and we shall never have a better chance than this. Hold you gquiet here. whilst I- But I laid fast hold of him and would not hear to any such a foolhardy mar- ring of Ephraim Yeate's plan. “Heavens, boy! are you ne clean mad?’ 1 would say. *'Twill be risky enough with midnight in our favor; with the camp well asleep. and that great fire burned down to give us something less than broad daylight to work in! He turned upon me like a pettish child. “Oh, to the devil with your stum- bling-blocks, John Ireton! You are al- ways for holding back. By heaven! r swear you have no drop of lover's blood in_your veins!" “So you have said before. But let that g.l!; ‘we must bide by our promise to ‘eates, which was not to interfere un- less Margery stood in present peril. Moreover, we should learn the lay of the land better_while we have the firelight to help. When the time for action comes we must be able to make the play with our eyes shut, if need be. Come.” "Twas like pulling sound teeth to get him away, but he yielded at length and we crept to have some better sight of the troop camp. We had it; had a glimpse of the Baronet-captain playing loo with his lieutenant and another. The tableau at the fire gave us better cour- age. The men had thelr arms aside and were sprawling at their ease; and while the arch scoundrel was in the gaming mood Margery had less to fear from him. 1 sald as much to Dick, and for an- swer he pointed to the flask of usque- ugh which was at that moment mak- 1 the round of the loop ers. know conn et than have own him P55 1% i Rinds of of a but he is a flend incarnate '"lth'om Hquor in him. ‘'Tis } If he 4o but drink e e to ve need— “Hist!” said I; some of these loung- THE SUNDAY CALL. ing rascals mey not be so drowsy as they look.” ¥ 4 He nodded, and we backed away to make another circuit which fetch us out on the up-valley side of the encamp- ment. Here we could look down in a smaller glade or bottom meadow on the stream where the horses of the band were cropping bush grass. It was the sight of these and of Margery's black mare among them that set me thinking of a pickeering venture the full as harebrained as that from which I had but now dissuaded Richard Jenmifer. ‘We shall need another mount and Mistress Margery’s saddle,” I saild. “Lie you close here whilst I play the horse- th;;! on fhese reavers.” ut my dear lad was rash only for himself. “Now who is daft?” he rz'.ort- ed. “The Catawba himself could never m‘:ve't'h" gauntlet and come through “Mayhap,” I admitted. “But yet—" He cut me off in the midst, winding an arm about my head by way of an ex- tinguisher. One of the redcoat troopers lounging before the great fire had xsn and was coming straight for our hiding I saw not what to do; should have fod wadkd Gair B e uj wu‘oqu.iclnr witug.on b g “‘Give me your sword!” h ttered; “mine will bey‘:oo long to lh:r:: 21 and when the Englishman's next stride Dick would have kicked us out of hidin . When Join him he still L7 e [ \\',h":“‘ 0 lar and was emphasizing the need for sllence by sundry prickings with the Ferara. “Say, quick! what to do with him, Jack?” he demanded when I came up; and now my. slower wit came into play. “Out of this to some safer dressing- room, and I'll show you” sald I, and forthwith we marched our prize up the valley a long musket-shot or more. ‘When the soldier had leave to speak he begged lustily for his life, as you would guess; but we gave him a short shrift. ~If the plan I had in mind should have a flghting chance for success it must be set in train before this trooper should be missed. o 8o, having first gagged the poor devil with his own neckerchief, we stripped him quickly; and I as quickly donned the borrowed uniform and became, at least in outward semblance, a light-horse trooper of that king whose service I had once for- sworn. The items of small-clothes, waistcoat and head-gear fitted me pass- ing well, but when it came to the boots we stuck fast, and I was forced to wear my own foot-covering. The change made,—and you may be- 1leve no playhouse actor of them all ever dofted or donned a costume quicker—we bound our luckless captive hand and foot, pinned him face downward in the sward, and so leaving him with only his boots for a memento—happily for him the night was no more than goose-flesh cool—we raced back to our peeping place on the skirting of the camp ground. Here Dick wrung my hand, calling himself all the knaves unspeakable for letting me take a risk which he was pleased to call his own; and with that I stepped out into the firelight and was fair afoot in the enemy’'s camp. 0 Z % 2 \ From the hillside just below this pow- der rock I could look back upon the camp en enfilade, as an artilleryman would say. Nearest at hand was the half-moon of Indian lodges with the hollow of the crescent facing the stream, and a cal- dron fire burning in the midst. Around the fire a ring of warriors naked to the breech-clout kept time in a slow shuf- fling dance to a monotonous chanting; and for onlookers there was an outer ring of squatting figures—the visiting Tuckaseges, as I supposed. Beyond the Indian lodges, and a little higher up the gentle slope of the savan- na, were the troop shelters; and beyond these, half concealed in the fringing of the boundary forest, was the tepee lodge of the women. On the bare hillside beneath the pow- der magazine I made no doubt I was in plainest view from the great fire, and the proof of this conclusion came shortly in a béllowing hail from Falconnet. “Ho, Jack Warden!" he called, making a speaking trumpet of his hands to lift the hail above the chanting of the Indian dancers. “Have a look at that shelter whilst you are over there and make sure ‘twill shed rain if the weather shifts. Now some such long-range marking down as this was what I had been ang- ling for. So I came to attention and sa- luted in soldierly fashion, thereby rais- ing a great laugh among my pseudo-com- rades around the trooper fire—a laugh that pointed shrewdly to the barofiet- captain’s lack of proper discipline. But that is neither here nor) ther® Having my master’s order for ‘t. I climbed to the foot of the powder rock. Here the bare sight of all the stored- up devastation set me athirst with a fierce longing for leave to snap a pistol in the well-laid mine. For {f these ene- mies of ours had planned their own un- doing they could never have given a des- perate foeman a better chance. To hold the pine boughs of the rude shelter in - place they had piled a great loose wall of stones around and over the cargo; and the firing of the powder, heaped as it was against the backing cliff of the boulder, would hurl these weighting stones in a murderous broadside upon the camp across the stream. But since my dear lady would also share the hazard of such a broadside, I had no leave to blow myself and the powder conyoy to kingdom come, as I thirsted to—could not, you will say, hav- ing neither pistol to snap nor flint and steel to fire a train. Nay, nay, my dears, I would not have you think so lightly of my Invention. Had this been the only obstacle, you may be sure I should have found a way to grind a firing spark.out of two bits of stone. But being otherwise enjoined, as I say, 1 furned my back upon the temptation and held to the business in hand, which was to reach and recross the stream higher up and so to come among the horses. As I had hoped to flud them, the sad- dles were hung upon thé branches of the nearest trees, Margery's horse-furnish- ings among them. At first the black mare was shy of me, but a gentling word or_two won her over, and she let me take er- by the forelock and lead her deeper to the herd where I could saddle and bridle her in greater safety. My plan to cut her out was simple enough. Trusting to the darkness—the horse meadow was far enough from the fires to make a murky twilight of the ruddy glow—I thought to lead the mare quletly away up the stream and thus on 1o the foot of that ravine by which we hoped to climb to the oid borderer’'s ren- dezvous on the plateau. But when all was ready and I sought to set this plan in action, an unforeseen obstacle barred the way. To keep the horses from stray- ! upgthe valley an Indian sentry line was strung above the grazing meadow, and into this I blundered like any un- licked knave of a raw recruit. Had I been armed, the warrior who rose before me phantom-like in the lau- rel edging. of the meadow would have had a most sharp-pointed answer to his challenge. As it was—I had left my sword with Jennifer because the cap- tured trooper whose understudy I was had left his sword in camp—I tried to parley with the sentry. He knew no whrd of English, nor I of Cherokee; but that deadlock was speedily broken. A guttural call summoned others of the horsekeepers, and one among them who spoke a little English. “Ugh! What- for take white horse?" he demanded. “'Tis the captain's order,” I replied, lying boldly to fit the crisis. At that they gave me room; and had [ hastened 1 had doubtless gone at large without more ado. But at this very apex point of hazard I must needs play out the part of unalarm to the fool's envoi, taking time to part the mare's forelock under the headstall. and looking leisure- 1y to the lacings of the saddle girth. This foolhardy delay cost me all, and squaw more than all. 1 was still fiddle-fad- dling with the girth strap, the bet- ter to impose Upom my Indian horse guards when suddenly therc arose & yelling hubbub of laughter in the eamp behind. I turned to look and beheld a thing laughable enough, no doubt, and yet it broke no bubble of mirth in me. Half-way from the nearest forest fringe to the.great fire a man white of skin and clothed only in a of trooper boots, was running swi for cover to the nearest pine bough shelter, shouting like an escaped Bed- lamite as he fled. It asked for no see- ond glance, this apparition of the yell- ing madman: 'twas our captive soldier, foot Igpse and racing in to raise the hue and @Fy. NoW you may always count upon this failing in a cautious man-that in a crisis he Is like to do the unwisest thing that offe This cutting out of Mar- gery's mare was none so vital a matter that T should have risked the marring of Ephraim Yeates' plan upon it. Yet, having done this very thing, I must needs make 3 bad matter infinitely worse. Instead of mounting to ride a charge through the camp, and so to draw the pursuit after me toward the cavern en- trance, as I should, I Slapped the mare to send her boubding through the guard line, snatched a saddle from its oak- branch peg to hurl it in the faces of the sentry group, and, darting aside. plung- ed inta the laurel thicket to come by running where I could and creeping where I must to that place where I had left Richard Jennifer. AIl hot and exasperated as I was, "twas something less than cooling to find Dick a-double on the ground, holding his sides and laughing like a yokel at his first pantomime. “Oh, he. heo! did yo him, Jack?' he gasved. ! ha!" “The devil take vour ill-timed humor!” 1 cried. “Up with you, man, and let us vanish while we may." By (his time the camp was in a pretty ferment, as rou would guess—our late captive having had space enough to tell his tale. Drunk or sober, Falconnet was afoot and alert, shouting his orders to the Englishmen, who were scrambling for their arms, and to the Indians, who came swarming up from the lodges. While we looked the Cherokees scat- tered like a comvany of trained gillies to beat us out of cover; and when the hunt was fairly up the baronet-captain set his men in marching order to sur- round the wiswam of the captives. As yet there was time for a swift retregt up the valley, or at least for the choosing of some battlefield of our own where the enemy need not outnumber us twenty to one; and again I urged Richard to bestir himself. ut it was the sight of Falconnet's troops deploying to sur- round the tepee-lodge, and not any word of mine, that broke his merriment in the midst. At a bound he was up and handing me my sword. “(Good-by, Jack: go while you cam. You'll be like to meet Eph and Catawba coming in. Turn them back and tell them to bide their time."” “But you?" I would say. “My place is inside of that soldler- cordon our friend is drawing about his dove-cote. I shall be at hand when she needs me, as I promised.” “Aye, so you may be; but not alone;” said I; and with that we fell.to réhning like a pair of doubling foxes through the wood on the steep slope behind the lodge, striving with might and main to gain the laurel thicket whence we had made our first recopnoissance before the con- verging .nes of the redcoat cordom should close and shut us out. We did it by the skin of our teeth, not a second too soon. in and hugging the bare ground under the scanty leafing of laurel, I take no would have been cramped was painfully conscious rowed coat of searlet thing to hide in. § “You have seen “Nothing, as yet. “Make the round again and tell the men ‘twill be ten gold joes and a double allowance of liquor to the man whe first claps eyes on any one of the four. The subaltern went to carry out the order, and Falconnet fell to pacing back and forth before the little wigwam. I could see his face at tne turn where the firelight fell upon him: ‘twas the face of a villain at his worst, namely, a vil lain half in liguor. There was 'a lurk- ing devil of passion peering out of the sensuous eyes; and ever and anon he stopped as to listen for some sound with- in the captives’ lodge. When the lleutenant returned to make his report, he was given another order to cap the first - “Your line is too close drawn and too canspicuous,” sald the captain shortl “Move the men out fifty paces in ad vance, and hid them take cover.” “They will scarce be within hail each other at that,” says the lieutenant “Near enough, with ten gold pieces to sharpen their eyesight. Go you with them and hold them to their work.” The line was presently extended as the order ran, each link in the cordor chain advancing fifty paces on its fro into the forest. Dick fetched a deep sigh of relief; and I thought less of the thin-leafed cover and the scarlet coat e. Falconnet had resumed the pacing of his sentry beat before the lodge, but when his men were out of sight and hearing he stopped "short and stole on tiptoe to lay his ear to the flap “So you are awake, M Margery? I would speak with you—alone. There was no reply, but we could both hear the low, anguished voice of our dear lady praying for help in this her hour of trial. Dick inched aside to give me room, freeing his weapom, as I aid mine. We were not overquiet about it, but the captain of horse ‘was too hot upon his own devil's business to look behind. him. Having no answer from within, he stooped to loose the flap. It was pegged down on the inside. He arose and wt ped out his sword. The firelight fell upon his face again and we saw it as it had been the face of a foul flend from the pit. “Open!™ he commanded;: and when there was neither reply nor obedience hs cut the flap free with his sword and flung it back. The two women within the wigwam were on their knees before a little cruci- fix hanging on the lodge wall. So much we saw as we broke cover and ran in upon the despoiler. Then the battle- madness came upon us, and I, for one, saw naught but the tense-drawn face of the swordsman fighting for his life—a face in which the hot flush of evil pas- sion had given place to the ashen gray- ing of fear. We drove at him together, Dick and I and so must needs fall afoul of each other clu y. giving him time to spring back and so miss the claymors stroke which else would have shorn him to the middle. Then ensued as pretty a piece of blade work as any master of the old cut-and-thrust school could wish to see and through it all this king's captain otk horse seemed to bear a charmed life. There was no punctilio of the code honor in this duel a Foutmance. Knowing our time was short, we fought as men ' ho fight with haiters round their necks to decide a nice point at issue, but to Kill this accursed villain as we wo: kill a mad dog or a venomous reptile whose living on imperiled the life and honer of the woman we loved Thrice, while I held him in play, Dick rushed in to end it with a scythe-sweep of the broadsword: and thrice the Scot- tish death was turned asfde by the flash man ing le of steel wherewith the striving shrewdly to gain time made s to shield himself. Yet it was not in flesh and blood to fend the double onslaught for more than some brief minute or two. Play as he would—and no schlagermeister of my old fleld marshal’s picked troop could best him at this game of parry and defense— he must give ground step by step; slow- Iy at the pressing of the Ferrara and in quick backward leaps when the great broadsword bit at him For the first few bouts he withatood us in zrim silence. But now Richard cut in again. and the claymore _stroke, less skilifully turned aside, brought him to his knees. This broke his bull courage somewhat, and though he was afoot and on guard before my point could reach him, he began to bellow lustily for help. As you would suppose, the call wa. all unneeded. At the first clash of stee. the troopers were up and swarming to the rescue; and now on all sides came the trampling rush of the in-closing cor- don line. Had Falconnet held his ground a mo ment longer he would have had us fast in the jaws of the trooper trap; but 'tis the fatal flaw in mers brute courage that it will break at the pinch. No sooner did the volunteer captain catch a glimpse of his up-coming reinforcements than he must needs show us a clean pair of heels. running like a craven coward and shouting madly to his men to close with us and cut us down. “After him!" roared Dick, who was by now as rage-mad as any berserker; and with a cut and thrust to right and left for the nipping trapjaws we were out and away in chase. Now you may mark this as you will: that while the devil hath need of his bond-servant he will keep the villain breath of life in his vassal. Three bounds beyond the closing trapjaws fetched us, pursued and pursuers, to the open camp fleld; and here the devil's miracle was wrought. Out of the forest fringe, out of the skirting undergrowth, out of the very earth, as it seemed, uprose a yell- Ing mob of Cherokees—the detachment we had met in the cavern returned in the very nick of time to cut us off from the pursuit and to ring us in a whooping circle of death. “Back to back, lad!™ I shouted; and was thus we met their onslaught. In such a fray as that which followed 'tis the trivial things that leave their mark upon the memory. For one. I 7 call the curious thrill of mastermighid: :‘ve me to feel the play of Jennifer's reat shoulder muscles against my back in his plying of the heavy claymore. Fnrv another, I remember the stckening qualm I bad when the warm blood of my sec- ond—or mayhap ‘twas the third—gushed out upon my sword hand. and T remem- ber. too, how the impaled one, driven in upon the blade by the pressure of his fellows behind, would lay hald of the sharp steel and try in the death throe to Withdraw it. But after that sickening qualm I re- eall only this; that I could not free the sword for another thrust, and while I tugged and fought for space they drag- ged me down and buried me. these flerce tribesmen, piling so thick upon me that sight and sound and breath went out to- . and I was but an atom crushed to earth beneath the human avalanche. CHAPTER XXIX. IN WHICH, HAVING DANCED, WE PAY THE £l breath and its gasping recovery the interval the scene had shifted open savanna to a thinly set of oaks, with the stream brawling the midst. fire, newly kindled, smoked and P fitfully. By the light of the fire a' score of the Cherokees were gathering deadfalls and dry branches to heap be- side me, and from the camp below, the Indian lodges of which were in plain view beyond the Intervening horse