It was not loaded!
Clancy Vere remained unharmed.
The hand of Providence was in it!
With a low cry of baffled rage, he set about loading the pistol. He had accomplished it in a minute. Would any thing baffle him now?
He cocked it, put on a cap, and took careful aim at Clancy’s head.
There was a flash and a sharp report.
He ran to the edge of the bank and examined his intended victim’s face critically; and there was nothing to indicate that the shot had been effective. Surely it had not touched his face, and there was nothing that looked like a bullet-hole in any part of the young hunter’s deer-skin clothing.
Ku-nan-gu-no-nah was almost frantic with impotent rage.
In his ungovernable passion, before, at being twice baffled, he had neglected to put a ball in the pistol!
This explained why he had, as he thought, although he had taken accurate aim, missed his mark.