Another dozen feet and he felt that the crisis was at hand. The little waving of grass and bushes that marked the passage of the Wyandot suddenly stopped, and the slight rustling ceased to come. Nerving everything for a mighty effort, Henry sprang to his feet and rushed forward. The Wyandot, who was just beginning to suspect, uttered a cry, and he, too, sprang up. His rifle leaped to his shoulder and he fired as the terrible figure sprang toward him. But it was too late to take any sort of aim. The bullet flew wide among the trees, and the next instant Henry was upon him.
The Wyandot dropped his empty rifle and met his foe, shoulder to shoulder and chest to chest. He was a tall warrior with lean flanks and powerful muscles, and he did not yet expect anything but victory. He was one of the many Wyandots who had followed him from the village, but he alone had found the fugitive, and he alone would take back the scalp. He clasped Henry close and then sought to free one hand that he might draw his knife. Henry seized the wrist in his left hand, and almost crushed it in his grasp. Then he sought to bend the Indian back to the earth.
The Wyandot gave forth a single low, gasping sound. Then the two fought wholly in silence, save for the panting of their chests and the shuffling sound of their feet. The warrior realized that he had caught a foe more powerful than he had dreamed of and also that the foe had caught him, but he was still sure of his triumphant return to the village with the fugitive scalp. But as they strove, shoulder to shoulder and chest to chest, for full five minutes, he was not so sure, although he yet had visions.
The two writhed over the ground in their great struggle. The warrior endeavored to twist his hand loose, but in the unsuccessful attempt to do so, he dropped the knife to the ground, where it lay glittering in the grass whenever the sunbeams struck upon its blade. Presently, as they twisted and strove, it lay seven or eight feet away, entirely out of the reach of either, and then Henry, suddenly releasing the warrior's wrist, clasped him about the shoulders and chest with both arms, making a supreme effort to throw him to the ground. He almost succeeded, but this was a warrior of uncommon strength and dexterity, and he recovered himself in time. Yet he was so hard pushed that he could make no effort to reach the tomahawk that still hung in his belt, and he put forth his greatest effort in order that he might drag his foe from his feet, and thus gain a precious advantage.
The last lizard scuttled away, and the drone of the insects ceased. Henry, as he whirled about, caught one dim glimpse of a blue jay, the same that had chattered so much in his idle joy, sitting on a bough and staring at the struggling two.
It was a titanic contest to the blue jay, two monstrous giants fighting to the death. All the other forest people had fled away in terror, but the empty-headed blue jay, held by the terrible fascination, remained on his bough, watching with dilated eyes. He saw the great beads of sweat stand out on the face of each, he could hear the muscles strain and creak, he saw the two fall to the ground, locked fast in each other's arms, and then turn over and over, first the white face and then the red uppermost, and then the white again.
The blue jay's eyes grew bigger and bigger as he watched a struggle such as he had never beheld before. They were all one to him. It did not matter to him whether white or red conquered, but he saw one thing that they did not see. As they rolled over and over they had come to the very brink of the hill, and the far side went down almost straight, a matter of forty or fifty feet. But this made no impression upon him, because he was only a blue jay with only a blue jay's tiny brain.
The two monstrous giants were now hanging over the edge of the precipice, and still, in their furious struggles, they did not know it. The blue jay, perceiving in a dim way that something tremendous was about to happen in his world, longed to chatter abroad the advance news of it, but his tongue was paralyzed in his throat, and his eyes were red with increasing dilation.
The two, still locked fast in each other's arms, went further. Then they realized where they were, and there was a simultaneous writhe to get back again. It was too late. The blue jay saw them hang for a moment on the brink and then go crashing into the void. His paralyzed voice came back to him, and, chattering wildly with terror, he flew away from the terrible scene.