"Is he down, Johnny Silver?" I bawled.
"Fairly paunched!" shouted Luysnes. "Tell your Oneidas they can take his hair, for I shan't touch it."
But Johnny Silver, in no wise averse, did that office very cheerfully.
"Nom de Dieu!" he panted, tugging at the oiled lock and wrenching free the scalp; "I have one veree fine jou-jou, sacré garce! I take two; mek for me one fine wallet!"
Down by the river the rifles were cracking fast and a smoke mist filled the woods. Ranging widely eastward we had turned their left flank—now their right—and were forcing them to a choice between the Sacandaga trail southward or the bee-line back to Canada by the left bank of West River.
How many there were of them I never have truly learned; but that scarcely matters to the bravest Indian, when ambuscaded and taken so completely by surprise from the rear.
No Indians can stand that, and but few white men are able to rally under such circumstances.
The Screech-owl, locked in a death struggle with a young Mohawk, broke his arm, stabbed him, and took his scalp before I could run to his aid.
And there on the ground lay four other scalps, two of white children, with the Little Red Foot painted on all.
I looked down at the dead murderer. He was a handsome boy, not twenty, and wore a white mask of war paint and two bars of scarlet on his chin, I thought—then realized that they were two thick streaks of running blood.