The tone of his voice was sad. I asked him if he felt home-sick?
“No, not home-sick,” he replied; “but I have been dreaming for nights past of all the old places—the eagle’s nest over Cooma-sa-harn, the rocks that hung over Lough Cluen, the island in the south end of the lake. I saw them just as they were in the old times. It was only last night that I dreamt we were climbing the face of the cliff to the eagle’s nest, and I thought the old bird came suddenly swooping down, and that I fell into the lough below.”
“Would you like to be back again in the old glen?” I asked him.
“Not unless you were to come too,” he answered. “This is a lonesome country sure enough, but I don’t mind it so long as you are near.”
We made our camp that night in a hollow, lower down on the west slope of the hill. We had killed some hares during the day, and had boiled them into a thick kind of soup, which, flavoured with wild sage, gave us an excellent supper. The meal over, we were sitting around the fire chatting and smoking, when suddenly a volley of musketry rang forth close at hand, and half a dozen bullets struck around us. In the wild confusion that followed, I only remember springing to my feet, and seeing the others spring up too. Not all, alas! for poor Donogh had fallen forward from the place where he was sitting, and the Cree only rose, to fall again. Seizing my gun, I sprang to where Donogh was lying; but at this moment I felt my hand suddenly grasped with iron strength, and I was dragged forward into the dark.
“Lie down,” hissed Red Cloud in my ear, “or we are all lost. Look at the fire, and shoot when you see them in the light.”
The whole thing had happened so quickly, that ere I had time to collect my senses I was lying in darkness, just over the brow of a knoll fifteen paces from the fire.
I had not long to wait. Suddenly there came a wild war-whoop of savage triumph, and a dusky group of men swept down into the circle of light from the outer darkness.
They thought that the first volley had given them undisputed possession of our camp, and that scalps and spoils had only to be gathered. Now it was our turn. Quick from our dark shelter the shots rang out; but few were thrown away. [One brawny savage], with knife in hand, [had reached the spot where Donogh was lying], but a bullet from my gun stopped his deadly purpose, and laid him low beside my poor friend.
