which was not there before. I gazed intently, and, following the spray
into the shadow, I saw something liquid and mottled like a toad's skin.
As I stared it flickered and shimmered. 'Twas only the light on a wet
leaf, I told myself; but surely it had not been there before. A sudden
suspicion seized me, and I lifted my pistol and fired.

There was a shudder in the thicket, and an Indian, shot through the
head, rolled into the burn.

At the sound I heard Ringan cry out, and there came a great war-whoop
from the mouth of the ravine. I gave one look, and then turned to my
own business, for as the dead man fell another leaped from the matted
cliffs.

My second pistol missed fire. In crossing the stream I must have damped
the priming.

What happened next is all confusion in my mind. I dodged the fall of
the knife, and struck hard with my pistol butt at the uplifted arm. I
felt no fear, only intense anger at my folly in not having looked
better to my priming. But the shock of the man's charge upset me, and
the next I knew of it we were wrestling on the ground.

I had his right arm by the wrist, but I was no match for him in
suppleness, and in the position in which we lay I could not use the
weight of my shoulders. The most I could do was to keep him from
striking, and to effect that my strength was stretched to its
uttermost. My eyes filmed with weariness, and my breath came in gasps,
for, remember, I had been up all night, and that day had already
travelled many miles. I remember yet the sickly smell of his greasy