They had scarcely gone half way, when they heard the alarm-cry, some quarter of a mile down the stream. It was supposed some party of Indians, returning from hunting, struck the river just as the body of the squaw floated past. White and the girl succeeded in reaching the mount, where M'Clelland had been no indifferent spectator to the sudden commotion among the Indians. Parties of warriors were seen immediately to strike off in every direction, and White and the girl had scarcely arrived before a company of some twenty warriors had reached the eastern slope of the mount, and were cautiously and carefully keeping under cover. Soon the spies saw their foes, as they glided from tree to tree and rock to rock, till their position was surrounded, except on the west perpendicular side, and all hope of escape was cut off. In this perilous position, nothing was left but to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
This they resolved to do, and advised the girl to escape to the Indians and tell them she had been taken prisoner. She said, "No! Death in the presence of my own people is a thousand times better than captivity and slavery. Furnish me with a gun, and I will show I know how to die. This place I will not leave. Here my bones shall lie bleaching with yours, and, should either of you escape, you will carry the tidings of my death to my few relatives."
Remonstrance proved fruitless. The two spies quickly matured their means of defence, and vigorously commenced the attack from the front, where, from the very narrow backbone of the mount, the savages had to advance in single file, and without any covert. Beyond this neck, the warriors availed themselves of the rocks and trees in advancing, but, in passing from one to the other, they must be exposed for a short time, and a moment's exposure of their swarthy forms was enough for the unerring rifles of the spies. The Indians, being entirely ignorant of how many were in ambuscade, grew very cautious as they advanced.
After bravely maintaining the fight in front, and keeping the enemy in check, the scouts discovered a new danger threatening them. The foe made preparation to attack them on the flank, which could be most successfully done by reaching an isolated rock, lying in one of the projections on the southern hill-side. This rock once gained by the Indians, they could bring the whites under point-blank range without the possibility of escape. The spies saw the hopelessness of their situation, which it appeared nothing could change.
With this impending fate resting over them, they continued calm and calculating, and as unwearied as the strongest desire of life could produce. Soon M'Clelland saw a tall, swarthy figure preparing to spring from a covert, so near to the fatal rock that a bound or two would reach it, and all hope of life would then be gone. He felt that everything depended on one single advantageous shot; and, although but an inch or two of the warrior's body was exposed, and that at the distance of eighty or a hundred yards, he resolved to fire.
Coolly raising his rifle, shading the sight with his hand, he drew a bead so sure that he felt conscious it would do the deed. He touched the trigger with his finger; the hammer came down, but, in place of striking fire, it broke his flint into many pieces! He now felt sure that the Indian must reach the rock before he could adjust another flint, yet he proceeded to the task with the utmost composure. Casting his eye toward the fearful point, suddenly he saw the warrior stretch every muscle for the leap, and with the agility of a panther he made the spring, but, instead of reaching the rock, he uttered a yell and his dark body fell, rolling down the steep to the valley below.
Some unknown hand had slain him, and a hundred voices from the valley below echoed his death cry. The warrior killed, it was evident, was a prominent one of the tribe, and there was great disappointment over the failure of the movement, which, it was considered, would seal the doom of the daring scouts.
Only a few minutes passed, when a second warrior was seen stealthily advancing to the covert, which had cost the other Indian his life in attempting to reach. At the same moment the attack in front was renewed with great fierceness, so as to require the constant loading and firing of the spies to prevent their foes from gaining the eminence. Still the whites kept continually glancing at the warrior, who seemed assured of the coveted position.
Suddenly he gathered his muscles and made the spring. His body was seen to bound outward, but instead of reaching the shelf, for which it started, it gathered itself like a ball and rolled down the hill after his predecessor.
The unknown friend had fired a second shot!