"It must take them a long time to make a reconnaissance—"
He suddenly ceased, for his ear, more than usually alert, caught a slight but suspicious sound, and quick as a flash he turned his head. He was not an instant too soon, for there was the crouching figure of the Apache warrior, no more than a dozen feet distant, his gleaming knife clutched in his right hand, and his eyes fairly aflame with passion. He was not moving along inch by inch, but with that soft gliding motion, which was more like the approach of a serpent than of a person.
Ned still held his rifle with the hammer raised, and ready for just such an emergency. Partly expecting the visit, he was fully prepared. When he turned his head and encountered the gaze of the Indian, the latter gave utterance to a low gutteral exclamation, and started more rapidly toward him.
"If you must have it, there it is."
The flash from the muzzle of the rifle was almost in the face of the Apache, who, with a death-shriek horrible to hear, threw both arms above his head, and, with a spasmodic twitching of the limbs, breathed his last in a single breath.
Ned was scarcely less terrified than the redskin must have been at the first flash of the gun; and, forgetful of the warning of the scouts, he leaped out from beneath the bushes, and dashed away in the direction taken by his friends.
He had run but a rod or two when he suddenly found himself face to face with Tom Hardynge, who demanded, in a hurried undertone:
"What's up, now?"
"I've just shot an Indian."
"Did you wipe him out?"