He struck a light with his flint, and applied it to his pipe.
Just as he had puffed two or three small clouds of smoke, and was preparing to enjoy himself to the fullest extent, a flash suddenly appeared, the pipe was knocked from his mouth, and the whizz of a bullet sounded in his ears!
To grasp his rifle and shelter himself behind a tree, on the side opposite to that from which the shot proceeded, was but the work of an instant.
“Red-skins, by the eternal! I know it by the twang of that rough-cast bullet.”
Whether red-skins or white men, he did not find it easy to be certain, although he was up to every move in such an emergency.
He knew that to look in the direction of the shot was to expose himself to almost certain death.
He listened with breathless anxiety for the slightest sound, which might give evidence of the movements of the enemy.
All remained perfectly still.
Adopting a very old ruse, he stuck his skin cap upon the barrel of his rifle, and held it out a few inches beyond the trunk of the tree, by the side of which he had ensconced himself.
A flash, a report, and it was pierced by a bullet!