After some hunting about, they found the path, and, headed by Tom Loker, began to climb up.
'Come up if you like,' George called out, 'but if you do we will shoot you.'
For answer, the little man took aim at George, and fired.
Eliza screamed, but the shot did not hurt him. It passed close to his hair, nearly touched her cheek, and, struck a tree behind.
Tom Loker came on. George waited until he was near enough, then he fired. The shot hit him in the side. But, though wounded, he would not go back. With a yell like that of a mad bull he came leaping on, and sprang right in among them.
Quakers are not allowed to use guns and pistols, so Phineas had been standing back while George shot. Now he sprang forward. As Tom Loker landed in the middle of them, he gave him a great push, saying, 'Friend, thee isn't wanted here.'
Down fell Tom Loker, down, down the steep side of the rock. He crashed and crackled among trees, bushes, logs, loose stones, till he lay bruised and groaning far below. The fall might have killed him, had it not been broken by his clothes catching on the branches of a large tree.
Cruel people are, very often, cowardly too. When the men saw their leader first wounded, and then thrown down, they all ran away.
Mounting their horses, they rode off as fast as they could, leaving Tom Loker lying on the ground wounded and groaning with pain.
