So quick and unexpected had been the onslaught that the savages were beaten back in less time almost than it takes me to describe it—beaten back into the forest and pursued as far as their own encampment. Here they made a stand, and the battle raged for a whole hour; but when did ever savages hold their own very long against the white man?
Let us draw a curtain on the scene that followed—the rout and the pursuit, and the return to the glade where the fight commenced. Stillness once more prevailed as our people re-entered it.
McBain glanced hastily and anxiously around. Where was Rory? Alas! he had not far to look. Yonder he lay, where the fight had raged the fiercest, on his back, quiet and still, with purple upturned face.
It was a painful scene, and down from the sky looked the round rising moon, while daylight slowly faded into gloaming.
As the giant oak is bent before the gale, so bowed was McBain in his grief. He knelt him down beside poor Rory and covered his face with his hands. “My boy! my poor boy!” was all he could say.
Seth had taken but one glance at Rory’s dark swollen face and another at the rising moon. “I guess,” he muttered, “there has been pizened arrows flying around.”
Then he disappeared in the forest.