“Shot by the red fiends!” cried the Destroyer, springing toward the prostrate man, who lay on the rocks bleeding, gasping, and trying to rise.
“Leave me!” he ejaculated, noticing the Destroyer’s action. “They were watching the cave, curse—the—hounds! Listen! there! they’re coming now. Go! they can’t torture the old trader who outwitted them at his cabin!”
“We won’t leave you, Doc,” said the youth. “We are not ingrates.”
“Rifle, rifle, then!” shrieked the trader. “One more shot before I go!”
With mighty effort he raised himself to his knees, and griped the weapon which Ahdeek, with a cry of admiration, thrust forward.
There was no retreating. The trader was too weak to run; the avengers too brave, too manly to desert him to the tomahawk.
The moment that followed the trader’s last words saw the mouth of the corridor swarming with Indians.
They were met by a trio of rifles, not a shot of which was thrown away.
The Chippewas did not pause; their dead comrades were hurled aside before they could touch the ground, and, though the heroic three used their pistols to advantage, they rushed on to certain victory—which so often rewards overwhelming numbers.
Doc Cromer, the trader, sunk exhausted before the fierce onset, and the clubbed rifles of the White Tiger and his darker brother, who disputed the ground with heroic valor, could not turn the fortune of battle.