"Give over, Peter!" I cried again. "Run whilst you can. I will roll down the hill."
"Stay!" he croaked at me, without shifting his eyes from his antagonist. "I finish him dis time."
The bear felt the same way, and prowled forward on all-fours, its roars echoing between the hillsides. Peter, anticipating its rush, sprang in so swiftly that his tomahawk clattered on the lowered skull and chopped out one of the little, red eyes. Then the bear went mad. So far it had fought with the cautious circumspection of a great, stupid man-beast, aware that it was at a disadvantage as regards wits. Now it simply threw itself upon Peter. They met in a desperate clinch, as the bear heaved itself erect, and it hacked at him with all four sets of claws, rolling over and over on the ground, until Peter slipped free and staggered off, wiping the blood from his eyes.
He had no time to rest, however. The beast was on him once more, bellowing wildly, its hide gashed and torn. They came chest to chest in full career, Peter chopping and stabbing, the bear champing its teeth and slashing with its claws; and I found myself crawling toward them, dragging my injured ankle, fighting over a yard of pebbly slope to gain a foot of distance. But before I could reach them the end came.
The bear seemed to throw its weight forward with desperate energy and Peter reeled back, exposing his throat so that the bear bent its head and snapped for the throat. But Peter twisted violently and the savage teeth met on his collar-bone. In its preoccupation with this new hold the beast must have relaxed its grip upon him, for in that very moment he slipped his knife home through a gash in its ribs and reached its heart.
It tottered there, its eyes glazing slowly, whilst Peter frantically whittled at its vitals and the blood pumped from the hole in its side and its claws dug at him with dying energy. Then it slumped over on its back, dragging Peter with it. When I reached the two bodies they lay in one heap, the bear's teeth still gripped in the flesh of the Dutchman's shoulder, his knife embedded in the beast's flank. I pried loose the bear's teeth with my knife-blade before the final rigor set in, and pulled Peter away as gently as I could. I was sure his life was oozing with every gush of the red tide. But he opened his eyes and grinned up at me.
"I make me a fine robe of dot pelt—Ja," he squeaked faintly.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SQUAT BOWMEN
I did what I might to staunch Peter's terrible wounds, but that was very little. We had no medicines and no cloths, save a handful or two of tow-wadding for the cleaning of our pieces. I used this stuff to pack the worst gashes, and bound the lips of other wounds with strips of hide cut from my shirt that I wound about his body. Then I scrambled over to his musket and loaded and fired it twice, in case Tawannears had not heard the first report. This much accomplished, I accumulated a stack of twigs and damp leaves and set them alight with my flint and steel. I knew the plume of smoke would attract the Seneca's eye, if his attention had been drawn by the musket-shots, and moreover, 'twould serve to guide him to us all the quicker.