“‘They both fired as I came up—one missed, an’ the other tuk me in the leg, an’ kerflumux I come to the ground. The Injuns thought they had me now, sure, an’ they came toward me, drawin’ their knives an’ yellin’ like mad. But I war on my pins agin in less than no time; an’, standin’ as well as I could on my broken leg, I swung my tomahawk around my head, an’ let fly at the nighest Injun. It tuk him plumb atween the eyes, an’ I knowed that the work war done for him. But the next minit the other heathen clinched me, an’, liftin’ me off my legs, throwed me to the ground like a log. He had two legs to use, an’ I had only one; there war where he had the advantage of me. But I had the use of my hands; an’ I jest made up my mind that if he wanted my scalp he would have to work for it; so, quick as lightnin’, I grabbed the hand that held the knife, an’ give it a squeeze that actooally made the bones crack, an’ the rascal give one yell, an’ let go the weapon. Then, with the other hand, I ketched him by the scalp-lock, an’ done my best to turn him, knowin’ that if I could onct get on top of him, I would be all right; but I couldn’t use my leg; so, thinks I, I’ll hold him here awhile, an’ I pulled his head down close to me. But I had bled so much that I begun to give out; an’ the Injun, who hadn’t made a move arter I got hold of his har, knowed that I war growin’ weak, an’ the first thing I knowed, he broke away from me, an’ sprung to his feet. I tried to get up too, but the Injun grabbed up his knife, an’ pinned me agin. I fit as well as I could, but the rascal knowed I couldn’t do nothin’; and, placing one knee on my breast to hold me down, he put one hand to his mouth, an’ give a loud yell.
“‘It war answered close by, an’ somebody come out o’ the bushes. At first I thought it war another Injun comin’ up to help rub me out; but another look showed me that it war a white feller. He didn’t stop to ax no questions, but made a dash at the Comanche, who got off me in a tarnal hurry, an’ callin’ out some name that showed that he knowed who the white feller war, he begun to make tracks; but he hadn’t gone ten foot afore the trapper had him by the neck. The fight war mighty short, for the Comanche wasn’t nowhere—the trapper handled him as though he had been a baby, an’ in less than two minits he war a dead Injun.’
“That’s the way ole Bill used to tell his story,” continued Dick; “an’ he allers used to pint me out as the man that saved him. The white feller’s trail that he seed by the creek war my own, an’ I war follerin’ up the Comanches. Wal, I tuk the old man back to his camp, an’, arter two months’ doctorin’, I got him all right agin. When he got well, he wouldn’t let me leave him, nor I didn’t want to, for he war jest the kind of a man I wanted for a chum. He hated an Injun as bad as I did, an’ I used to like to listen to the stories he told of his fights with them. How do you come on now, youngster?”
“O! I feel pretty well,” answered Frank, “only I’m a little weak.”
“You can thank your lucky stars that you wasn’t rubbed out altogether,” said the trapper, as he approached the young hunter. “Me an’ Useless got there jest in time. But you won’t allers be so lucky.”
After wrapping Frank up carefully in the blankets again, he knocked the ashes from his pipe, and sought his own couch.
CHAPTER VI.
The White Buck.
