On one of our numerous scouts we had left our horses, guarded as usual, and were passing up a small valley, covered with a scattering growth of diminutive and remarkably lean trees, when some Indians, concealed in a small grove immediately in front of us, pulled trigger. Luckily their fire drew no blood. But, as in such cases, it is natural for him who is the subject of such an unexpected attention to jump behind anything which may be at hand, to shelter himself, we, each of us, made for the largest and nearest tree. None of them were sufficiently broad to make any of us a tolerably good cover.
In this situation, Tom also made for a tree.
Its exaggeratedly narrow trunk, merely concealed his head and the centre of his prodigious frame. Butch', who was nearest to him, could not help crying out.
"Look out, Fattee, or we shall only have the middle of yer left."
"Hold your darned tongue, you infernal fool!" roared out Harvey.
While saying this he had dodged to the one side of the tree, to escape an arrow which whistled by the other. With commendable judgment, he lost no time in leaping to the side he had left. This exertion of agility saved him from a bullet.
Butch' had drawn a bead on the head of the red-skin who had fired the last, and with a yell of agony, he toppled over, struck by the Ranger's unerring ball.
"I forgive you, old boy," panted out Tom, as he leapt back once more.
