"Then you skelp'd (scalped) him immediately?" said the backwoodsman.
"Very clear of it, gentlemen, for by the time I got my rifle loaded, here came the other two red skins, shouting and whooping close on me, and away I broke again like a quarter horse. I was now about five miles from the settlement, and it was getting towards sunset; I ran till my wind began to be pretty short, when I took a look back and there they came snorting like mad buffaloes, one about two or three hundred yards ahead of the other, so I acted possum again until the foremost Injin got pretty well up, and I wheeled and fired at the very moment he was 'drawing a bead' on me; he fell head over stomach into the dirt, and up came the last one!"
"So you laid for him and—" gasped several.
"No," continued the "member," "I didn't lay for him, I hadn't time to load, so I layed legs to ground, and started again. I heard every bound he made after me. I ran and ran, until the fire flew out of my eyes, and the old dog's tongue hung out of his mouth a quarter of a yard long!"
"Phe-e-e-e-w!" whistled somebody.
"Fact! gentlemen. Well, what I was to do I didn't know—rifle empty, no big trees about, and a murdering red Indian not three hundred yards in my rear; and, what was worse, just then it occurred to me that I was not a great ways from a big creek, (now called Mill Creek,) and there I should be pinned at last.
"Just at this juncture I struck my toe against a root, and down I tumbled, and my old dog over me. Before I could scrabble up—"
"The Indian fired!" gasped the old woodsman.
"He did, gentlemen, and I felt the ball strike me under the shoulder; but that didn't seem to put any embargo upon my locomotion, for as soon as I got up I took off again, quite freshened by my fall! I heard the red skin close behind me coming booming on, and every minute I expected to have his tomahawk dashed into my head or shoulders.
"Something kind of cool began to trickle down my legs into my boots—"