And Bob, left behind amid the bushes, lifted his head slowly, so that he could see all that transpired, a grim expression on his young face, such as the stern realities of those early days stamped upon many a boyish countenance.
Ha! There was a movement not far away that his keen ear caught. Not turning his head a particle he twisted his eyes around to the left, and immediately discovered a bent figure that was skulking along, now dodging behind a tree, and anon crouching flat, as Sandy threatened to look around.
It was an Indian, rigged out in all the horrid paint and feathers that marked a Shawanee brave on the warpath. He gripped a short, but stout, bow in his hands; and even as Bob caught sight of him seemed to be fitting a feathered shaft to the tense gut that served as a cord.
Undoubtedly it was his intention to shoot again, and this time, as Sandy's back would be turned, there was a strong probability that the arrow might find a victim.
Bob looked no further; his mind was made up, and, raising his flint-lock musket to his shoulder, he glanced hastily along the barrel.
The red man was in the very act of letting fly his arrow when the bang of the heavily charged musket awoke the echoes of the forest. Sandy had not forgotten his part in the programme, for no sooner did he hear that discharge than he made a quick spring to a neighboring beech tree, back of which he crouched, ready to do his part in the game.
The Indian fell down, but, immediately scrambling to his feet with a whoop, ran off like a frightened deer. He was holding his right arm as he went, from which fact Bob gained the opinion that his hastily sent bullet must have struck that part of the enemy's anatomy.
Then he vanished in the depths of the forest, while Bob reloaded as fast as he could work his hands.
"Are there any more of them?" called Sandy, as he poked his gun out from behind the beech, ready to make use of the same at the slightest provocation.