“Tree! they’re goin’ to shoot.”
Instantly the trio sprung to trees, and simultaneously with their action a score of rifles cracked. The leaden pellets whistled about them like hail, and, staggering from the giant oak, which his hands had barely touched, Oliver Blount dropped over the trunk of a decayed tree.
“Let ’em hev it, Bob,” cried the giant. “We might as well die here as any place. They’ve finished Oll, the red dogs hev, nor shall one feel the pain of skinning.”
As the hunter finished, he thrust his long-barreled rifle forward, and the young sub-chief who was bounding toward Blount with uplifted tomahawk, reeled with a death-yell, and fell dead, as a comrade, a few feet in his rear, met a like fate by the ball from Bob Somerville’s rifle.
“Now load, boy, load for yer life!” shrieked the giant, snatching the horn from his side, and with lightning rapidity proceeding to load his trusty rifle. “Beavers! Blount’s not dead. Brave fellar! he’s goin’ to give them a blister!”
The hunter in his rough manner had spoken truly.
The sorely-wounded trader with closed teeth and avenging eyes, had raised himself on his knees, and thrust his weapon over the log—his invulnerable bulwark. The twain behind the trees watched him as they reloaded their guns, and when they saw the old man’s finger press the trigger they exposed their bodies enough to see an Ottawa brave spring into the air with a death-shriek.
“Well done, Blount!” cried Bell, as the trader looked up with a smile of satisfaction, and then sunk behind the log to reload.
The Indians knew that their foes could recharge their weapons before they could engage in a hand-to-hand conflict, and, therefore, after Blount’s death-shot they sought the protection of trees until they could draw another volley from the whites.
With the agility so characteristic of the red-man, they glided from tree to tree, gradually approaching their victims and trying to get in their rear.