In silent amazement Abel obeyed, and then the blood-stained arrow was cast aside. While thus engaged, the wounded man had torn a bit of cloth from the young settler's shirt, and after chewing it hastily, pressed it into the orifice; another bit closed the second, and then he staggered to his feet, cutting a broad strip from his clothes.
"This will do for a bandage. Tie it hard and tight."
Abel tore the sleeve from his shirt, making two pads, which he placed over the wounds, then drawing the broad strip of buck-skin around the hermit's body as tightly as possible, secured it firmly. By this time the strange being had apparently recovered. As he said, the wound had in a manner paralyzed the muscles of his body, though only momentarily.
Edith had been a pale and trembling witness of all this, crouching just within the cave. Death seemed inevitable when the stern onset was made, but now she breathed a prayer of thanksgiving that they all were yet safe.
The repulse had been bloody in the extreme, and the loss of the Indians had been very severe. Yet it seemed only to increase their resolution to conquer. As the hermit said, they would never be beaten by two men. And now, though in silence, they were again advancing to the spot of death.
A dark line cautiously broke upon the grayish white edge of the rock, rising noiselessly higher, until a pair of eyes glared strangely toward the defenders. A faint cry from Edith called their attention, then following the direction indicated by her trembling finger, they discovered the head of a savage slowly rising above the ledge. Quick as thought, Abel flung forward his rifle and fired, just as the hermit cried:
"Don't shoot—it's a trick—they're shoving up a dead man to draw our fire!" and then he clutched the bow and notched an arrow to the string.
As the rifle-shot rung out, a cry of triumph broke from the lips of the savages, and the corpse that had availed them so well was cast aside, while in quick succession they sprung upon the ledge. They believed the game was in their own hands now, for the marksmen above had telegraphed them the fall of the hermit, and now that the other's rifle was empty, a single rush would end all.
But the first one whose foot touched the ledge bounded backward, yelling convulsively, a feathered shaft quivering deep in his skull. He fell half-way down the hill, but to one side of the trail, that was now densely crowded with yelling warriors, rushing to the ledge above.
Like living shadows, the yelling red-skins leaped upon the narrow ledge, the bright blades of their brandished weapons gleaming in the sunlight. Twice in rapid succession the hermit's bow twanged sharply, the death-note of as many screeching fiends. Again the weapon was bent—but the wielder staggered forward, as, with a sullen sound, the frayed string snapped in twain, the arrow dropping useless to the ground. It seemed as though all was over, for Abel Dare was just ramming home a bullet. Before he could withdraw the rod, the enemy would be upon them bodily.