Vinnie’s revolver cracked again inside the cabin as Darke rammed home another load; and he uttered another fervent “Thank God!” as he thought that she had been saved thus far. At his request, she had placed it upon her person that morning, and he had reason to think that it was being fired by her own hands. He could not distinguish the sound of Clancy’s weapon from the Indians’; but he knew him well enough to be certain that he would not yield except with his life.
The fire was creeping up the side of the cabin, gaining ground rapidly in the dry timber of which it was constructed. In a few moments the whole building would be in a light blaze. An attempt to extinguish the flames would, Darke saw, be fruitless.
There was no one to oppose his advance across the clearing since he had slain the two savages left on the outside to fire the cabin and guard against a surprise by any one from without, and closely followed by Death, he dashed over the intervening space to the open door of the cabin.
Looking within he saw, by the light of the fire blazing on the hearth, that Clancy Vere was engaged in a desperate, hand-to-hand struggle with three Indians. His back was against the wall, and with an almost superhuman effort he forced them back and kept them at bay with his clubbed rifle. Their guns were not loaded; but the young hunter detected one of the trio in the act of charging his rifle, while the two others vainly tried to get at him with their knives, and, quickly whipping out his six-shooter, one chamber of which held a leaden bullet that soon proved a quietus to this most dangerous of his assailants, he discharged it and had only two enemies to contend with.
The next moment the young hunter’s clubbed weapon fell with deadly force upon the head of one of the Indians, crushing it like an egg-shell, while at the same instant the other fell, pierced through the brain by a ball from Darke’s unerring rifle.
Clancy had fought like a tiger, and though he had not been dangerously wounded, he had not escaped unscathed. A bullet fired through the window, before the Indians had forced an entrance through the battered-down door of the cabin, had grazed his temple, making an ugly though not dangerous furrow, and carrying away a portion of his ear. The blood was trickling down his face, and dropping upon the floor at his feet.
Darke sprung into the room at a single bound.
“Vinnie!” he cried. “Where is Vinnie?”
“Gone!” gasped Clancy.
“Gone! My God! what do you mean?”