As I piled in after him I saw Patsy and Dale entering their cabin, but Ward, the white Indian, was running to cover up the valley. And not a savage had shown himself with the exception of the one who had counted coup at the lick-block. This fellow was still in sight and extremely busy.
With our door ajar we watched the ghastly struggle between the faithful mongrel and the assassin. The Indian had lost his ax but had managed to draw his knife. The dog’s teeth were buried in his throat before he could get his blade loose. I raised my rifle but Cousin laughed and knocked it aside and cried:
“Let him make his kill! It’s his coup!”
The warrior staggered clear of the block, his desperate plight blinding him to all else. His eyes were protruding. He stabbed blindly. I cried out in pain as I saw the knife sink to the hilt. But the faithful beast had locked his jaws and the weight of his body was already ripping the red throat open. Dead dog and dying warrior fell side by side. The dog had counted the first coup for the whites.
Now we caught our first view of the enemy. A long line of Shawnees emerged from the woods, running and leaping and jumping from side to side, sinking behind stumps and vanishing behind the scattered trees.
“We’ve got time to make the ridge back o’ here,” spoke up Cousin. “We’s fools to come in here. S’pose we go.”
“You go! I must stick,” I told him.
“We can do ’em more good out in the open than by bein’ cooped up in here,” he quietly reasoned.
“You go. I can’t leave the girl.”
“Then bar the door,” he commanded.