Then he made a quick spring toward a savage, and, with a desperate lunge, drove the slender blade to the heart of the foe.
Up to this instant the savages stood facing the whites, without making a single demonstration. It was quite evident that the cunning demons had expected their sudden and unexpected presence to completely terrify the whites to a bloodless submission. In this, however, they were sorely surprised, for, at the same instant that Town. ran one of them through with Rollo’s saber, Old Tumult dropped his rifle and dealt the second one a blow with his huge fist, that sent him whirling overboard into the river. Then, with a roar equal to that of a maddened lion, he leaped at the third savage, while Town. engaged the fourth.
The savage with whom Old Tumult grappled hand to hand, was the scout’s equal in every respect. If there was any difference in weight, it was in favor of the deep, wide-chested Arapaho. In so close a grapple, the savage was compelled to drop his tomahawk, and then, in endeavoring to draw his knife, it slipped from his fingers and fell to the deck.
Thus deprived of all the weapons save those that nature gave them, the two giant enemies “clinched.”
The contest at once became desperate. It was a battle of life and death.
Town. Farnesworth, brave as a lion and quick as a flash, soon gained the advantage over his foe and ran him through with the saber. As he rolled dead at his feet, the young man turned to assist the old scout, but at that instant the two giant combatants, locked in each other’s embrace, staggered backward and rolled through the hatchway into the boat’s hold.
“My God!” exclaimed Town., rushing to the opening and looking down. But he saw nothing of the combatants. Back in the hold, two feet from the hatchway, it was dark as midnight. Besides, to render the situation more critical, there was several inches of water in the hold.
Town. started up—his brain burning with wild excitement. The death of his friend seemed inevitable.
He turned inquiringly toward Rollo, who, as yet, had never left the tiller. What must have been his surprise and consternation to see the ranger stoop and assist on board the savage that Old Tumult had knocked overboard at the beginning of the conflict.
“Rollo! Rollo!” cried Town., “what means this?” and, springing forward, he severed the head of the savage almost from the body, with a single sweep of the ranger’s saber.