“Yis; down for a second and turn on ’em. Don’t waste lead!”
A number of Indians converging from the right were hardly thirty yards distant. Three or four of them had just fired, and a hasty glance behind showed them coming on in something of a cluster.
The pursued rangers suddenly stopped, dropped on foot and knee, and poured a volley into their pursuers. Then, amidst the echoes of yells and groans, they sprung onward again, like lightning. But the check they had given in one quarter was more than balanced by loss of time and the proximity of their enemies coming directly behind.
“Every man for himself, an’ devil take the hindmost!” The action of the borderers was in keeping with this old saying, at least. Knife in one hand, rifle in the other, they sped on, intent on penetrating the deeper lines of darkness ahead.
The Indians were fearfully near. The foremost were hardly thirty feet behind when a hatchet whizzed, striking Tim’s rifle and whirling him half round. He was barely in time to recover his balance and club his rifle.
“Take dthat! Och, here’s for betthur nor worse, thin!”
He had laid one of his assailants low, and the next instant was grasped by another. By great good-fortune he knifed this one, who in convulsive agony bore him to the ground. At the moment two rifles rung out and two savages fell headlong, rolling over both.
With desperate quickness, the Irishman sprung up in time to see one or two men vanish before him. He sprung after them, not certain whether they were friends or foes.
The matter was soon determined. A dozen bounds brought him to a natural barricade of prostrate tree-trunks, over which he tumbled in his excitement, his heels coming in contact with the head and shoulders of a man.
“Gi-gi-git—oh, cuss ye!” muttered Hill.