Then, as if feeling he had retreated far enough, the Shawanoe advanced on his muscular foe, who drew back as if to brace himself for the assault. Deerfoot uttered no sound, but when he bounded lightly from the ground, Hay-uta knew the crisis had come; the trifling had ended.
The Shawanoe, when close enough to strike, made a dozen circular sweeps of his good left hand, as though he had rested it on the rim of a wheel that was spinning with bewildering swiftness. No eye could follow the knife in its circlings. There was one smooth gleam like the polished periphery of the "driver" of a locomotive.
The foes, as is always the case, looked straight in each other's eyes, but every limb and portion of the body, being in the field of vision, was clearly seen. The peculiar act of Deerfoot produced the effect intended. The vision of Hay-uta became confused and dizzy, and before he could rally the Shawanoe struck his blow.
He could have killed the other as easily as he would have slain a bear, but he chose not to do so. Instead, he brought his fist down on the upper part of his right wrist with a quick violence, which, for the second time, knocked the knife from the grasp of the more sinewy warrior. So deftly was the trick done that the weapon of the Sauk flew a dozen feet straight up in the air, turning rapidly end over end and falling between the two.
Deerfoot's Victory.
If Hay-uta was subject to the will of Deerfoot a minute before, it will be seen that now he was helpless. He had been again disarmed, while the lithe youth still grasped his own weapon with the power to drive it home whenever he so willed.