“Hell and damn!” cried he, with horrid emphasis, “you’ve kilt my dogs!” and then followed a volley of mingled oaths and threats, while the ruffian gesticulated as, if he had suddenly gone mad!
After a while he ceased from these idle demonstrations; and, planting himself firmly, he raised his rifle muzzle towards me, and cried out:—
“Come off that log, and fetch your blue-skin with you! Quick, damn yer! Come off that log! Another minnit, an’ I’ll plug ye!”
I have said that at first sight of the man I had given up all idea of resistance, and intended to surrender at once; but there was something so arrogant in the demand—so insulting in the tone with which the ruffian made it—that it fired my very flesh with indignation, and determined me to stand at bay.
Anger, at being thus hunted, new-nerved both my heart and my arm. The brute had bayed me, and I resolved to risk resistance.
Another reason for changing my determination—I now saw that he was alone. He had followed the dogs afoot, while the others on horseback had no doubt been stopped or delayed by the bayou and morass. Had the crowd come up, I must have yielded nolens volens; but the man-hunter himself—formidable antagonist though he appeared—was still but one, and to surrender tamely to a single individual, was more than my spirit—inherited from border ancestry—could brook. There was too much of the moss-trooper blood in my veins for that, and I resolved, coute que coute, to risk the encounter.
My pistol was once more firmly grasped; and looking the ruffian full into his bloodshot eyes, I shouted back—
“Fire at your peril! Miss and you are mine!”
The sight of my uplifted pistol caused him to quail; and I have no doubt that had opportunity offered, he would have withdrawn from the contest. He had expected no such a reception.
But he had gone too far to recede. His rifle was already at his shoulder, and the next moment I saw the flash, and heard the sharp crack. The “thud” of his bullet, too, fell upon my ear, as it struck into the branch against which I was leaning. Good marksman as he was reputed, the sheen of my pistols had spoiled his aim, and he had missed me!