"You are wounded?" anxiously cried Abel Dare.
"A scratch—nothing more," was the quiet reply. "But, the time is come now. Those devils mean mischief. They hold the ledge above, and next time will take better aim. But they can't touch us in here. All we have to do now is to watch and pick off the devils as they show themselves at the head of the path you came up by."
Truly a narrow escape had been his. One of the arrows had grazed his neck, cutting through the skin over the jugular vein. The other had passed between his arm and side marking them both with a livid welt. Considering the position they were forced to assume, and firing directly downward, the wonder was that the Indians had made such good shots, and that they missed being fatal.
"Then, you think they will attempt to force their way up that—?"
"I'm certain of it. They know our strength now, and they dare not retreat—their tribe would disgrace them if they let two men foil them. No, depend upon it, they'll give us work enough—and hot work at that."
"God grant that we may be able to hold our own! Not for myself," Abel hastily answered the hermit's keen glance, "but for her. She is all I have left on earth now."
"Then you—you are an orphan? Your mother is—"
"Dead. But whether my father lives or no, I can not tell. I can remember nothing of him but what my mother told me. On her death-bed she bade me seek for him, nor rest satisfied until I had found him, either living, or in his grave. If living, to give him her forgiveness for the great wrong he had done her. But why do I tell you this? It can not interest you—a stranger."
"It does—deeply. Perhaps because you are a friend. Tell me more—about him. Perhaps I can give you some clue—"
"Hist! Is not that the scratching sound of feet upon the trail?" hastily whispered Abel, bending his ear.