Urging him forward, therefore, he soon left the savages still farther behind, and feeling confident that they could not now overtake him he reined up and dismounted.  The pursuers quickly drew near, but short though it was the rest did his horse good.  Vaulting into the saddle, he again stretched out, and now skirted along the margin of a wood which seemed to mark the position of a river of considerable size.

At this moment his horse put his foot into a badger-hole, and both of them came heavily to the ground.  In an instant Dick rose, picked up his gun, and leaped unhurt into the saddle.  But on urging his poor horse forward he found that its shoulder was badly sprained.

There was no room for mercy, however—­life and death were in the balance—­so he plied the lash vigorously, and the noble steed warmed into something like a run, when again it stumbled, and fell with a crash on the ground, while the blood burst from its mouth and nostrils.  Dick could hear the shout of triumph uttered by his pursuers.

“My poor, poor horse!” he exclaimed in a tone of the deepest commiseration, while he stooped and stroked its foam-studded neck.

The dying steed raised its head for a moment, it almost seemed as if to acknowledge the tones of affection, then it sank down with a gurgling groan.

Dick sprang up, for the Indians were now upon him, and bounded like an antelope into the thickest of the shrubbery; which was nowhere thick enough, however, to prevent the Indians following.  Still, it sufficiently retarded them to render the chase a more equal one than could have been expected.  In a few minutes Dick gained a strip of open ground beyond, and found himself on the bank of a broad river, whose evidently deep waters rushed impetuously along their unobstructed channel.  The bank at the spot where he reached it was a sheer precipice of between thirty and forty feet high.  Glancing up and down the river he retreated a few paces, turned round and shook his clenched fist at the savages, accompanying the action with a shout of defiance, and then running to the edge of the bank, sprang far out into the boiling flood and sank.

The Indians pulled up on reaching the spot.  There was no possibility of galloping down the wood-encumbered banks after the fugitive; but quick as thought each Red-man leaped to the ground, and fitting an arrow to his bow, awaited Dick’s re-appearance with eager gaze.

Young though he was, and unskilled in such wild warfare, Dick knew well enough what sort of reception he would meet with on coming to the surface, so he kept under water as long as he could, and struck out as vigorously as the care of his rifle would permit.  At last he rose for a few seconds, and immediately half-a-dozen arrows whizzed through the air; but most of them fell short—­only one passed close to his cheek, and went with a “whip” into the river.  He immediately sank again, and the next time he rose to breathe he was far beyond the reach of his Indian enemies.