“What have I done!” he gasped, as the cold sweat broke out upon his brow. “Horrible! What a deed to do!” and his eyes seemed fixed upon the river in the vain expectation of seeing the wretched savage come into sight again.
Just then he felt a touch upon his arm, and turning sharply found himself face to face with the Beaver, whose shoulder was scored by a bullet wound, from which the blood trickled slowly down over his chest.
As Bart faced him he smiled, and grasped the lad’s hand, pressing it between both of his.
“Saved Beaver’s life,” he said, softly. “Beaver never forgets. Bart is brave chief.”
Bart felt better now, and he had no time for farther thought, the peril in which they were suddenly appearing too great.
For the Beaver pointed back to where the chimney offered the way of escape.
“Time to go,” the Beaver said. “Come.”
And, setting the example, he began to creep from cover to cover, after uttering a low cry, to which his followers responded by imitating their leader’s actions.
“Keep down low, Master Bart,” whispered Joses. “That’s the way. The chimney’s only about three hundred yards back. We shall soon be there, and then we can laugh at these chaps once we get a good start up. We must leave the fish though, worse luck. There won’t be so many of ’em to eat it though as there was at first. Hallo! How’s that?”
The reason for his exclamation was a shot that whizzed by him—one fired from a long way down the canyon in the way they were retreating, and, to Bart’s horror, a second and a third followed from the same direction, with the effect that the savages who had attacked first gave a triumphant yell, and began firing quicker than before.