The whites exchanged but a word or two and then opened the ball.

A savage, evidently the leader, and one who probably now saw the whites
for the first time, had the audacity to step forward a couple of paces,
and with a yell of defiance, raised his spear over his head.

Before he could launch the missile Jared Long sent a bullet through
him, and then, shifting the muzzle of his Winchester toward the line of
dusky figures, he blazed away as fast as he could sight the weapon and
pull the trigger.

At the same instant the Professor and Ashman opened, and the
bombardment which followed was enough to strike terror to the hearts of
a hundred men.

It was more than the savages could stand, but, great as was their
panic, most of them hurled one or two javelins apiece at the white men
who stood fearlessly erect and combated them. They had come from their
village prepared for a fight, and each warrior was provided with
several of the poisoned missiles.

Before the explorers had emptied the magazines of their Winchesters not
a live foe was left. The affrighted survivors, shrieking with terror,
scrambled hastily back among the trees, some of them dragging the dead
bodies, so that the spot was freed of the dusky miscreants with as much
suddenness as it had been occupied by them.

There were plenty of shots left, and, after the disappearance of the
savages, the whites fired into the woods, where they had vanished, not
with the expectation of accomplishing anything more than adding to the