Through Apache Land

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

"Yes; but you made such a racket here that I've lost faith in you."

"Try me and see."

Adding a few hasty words, the scout left him, and hurried to the top of the hill, without pausing to approach with his usual precaution.

His expectation was to encounter the redskin at once upon reaching it, but, to his surprise, he was nowhere to be seen, and he paused somewhat bewildered.

"I wonder whether he's got scart 'cause none of the rest followed him, and jumped overboard—"

At that instant something descended like a ponderous rock, and he realized that he was in the grip of the very redskin about whom he had been meditating. The miscreant had managed to crouch behind a rocky protuberance, and then made a sudden leap upon the shoulders of the hunter. As the Apache's scheme had miscarried thus far, and instead of being backed up by the other warriors, he was left alone to fight it out, he did not pause to attempt to make him prisoner, but went into the scrimmage with the purpose of ending it as briefly as possible. As he landed upon the shoulders of Dick the latter caught the gleam of his knife, and grasped his wrist just in time. Fearful that it would be wrenched from him, the Apache managed to give his confined hand a flirt, which threw it beyond the reach of both. By a tremendous effort Dick then succeeded in flinging him over his shoulder, although the agile redskin dropped upon his feet, and instantly flew at his antagonist like a tiger.

For several minutes the struggle raged with the greatest fury; but the Apache, in a contest of this kind, was overmatched. The hunter was much the superior, and he began crowding his foe toward the margin of the rock. Divining his purpose, he resisted with the fury of desperation; but it was useless, and the two moved along toward the brink like the slow, resistless tread of fate. Neither of them spoke a word, nor was a muscle relaxed. The scout knew that the instant the struggle was detected by those below, there would be a rush up the incline such as Ned Chadmund with his loaded and cocked revolver could not withstand. The fighting, therefore, was of the hurricane order from the beginning to the close.

There was one terrific burst of strength, and then, gathering the writhing savage in his arms, Dick Morris ran to the very edge of the plateau and hurled him over.

Down, down from dizzy heights he spun, until he struck the ground far below, a shapeless, insensible mass, falling almost at the feet of the horror-bound Apaches, who thus saw the dreadful death of one of their most intrepid and powerful warriors.

Without waiting to see the last of the redskin, the scout turned and hurried down to the relief of his young charge, and to be prepared for the rush which he was confident would be made the next minute. But it was not. The redskins had learned, from dear experience, the mettle of this formidable white man, and they had no wish to encounter it again.