But being a knight of the woods, and to convince the Ojibway that it was no trick, he showed himself first.  Tandakora shot at once, but Tayoga dropped back like a flash, and the arrow cut the air, where his feathered head had been.  Then all his Indian nature, the training and habit of generations, leaped up in him and he began to taunt.

“You shot quickly, Tandakora,” he called, “and your arm was strong, but the arrow struck not!  You followed us all the way from Stadacona, and you thought to have our scalps!  The Great Bear and Lennox did not suspect, but I did!  The warriors who came with you are dead, and you and I alone face each other!  I have shown myself and I have risked your arrow, now show yourself, Tandakora, and risk mine!”

But the Ojibway, it seemed, had too much respect for the bow of Tayoga.  He remained close, and did not disclose an inch of his brown body.  The Onondaga did not show himself again, but crouched for a shot, in case the opportunity came.  He knew that Tandakora was a great bowman, but he had supreme confidence in his own skill against anybody.  Nothing stirred where his enemy lay and no sound came from the little camp, which was beyond the reach of the words they had uttered.

A quarter of an hour, a half hour, an hour passed, and neither moved, showing all the patience natural to the Indian on the war path.  Then Tayoga shook a bush a few feet from him, but Tandakora divined the trick, and his arrow remained on the string.  Another quarter of an hour, and seeing some leaves quiver, Tayoga, at a chance, sent an arrow among them.  No sound came back, and he knew that it had been sped in vain.

Then he began to move slowly and with infinite care toward the right, resolved to bring the affair to a head.  At the end of twenty feet he rustled the bushes a little once more and lay flat.  An arrow flew over his head, but he did not reply, resuming his slow advance after his enemy’s shaft had sped.  Another twenty feet and he made the bushes move again.  Tandakora shot, and in doing so he exposed a little of his right arm.  Tayoga sent a prompt arrow at the brown flesh.  He heard a cry of pain, wrenched in spite of his stoical self from the Ojibway, and then as he sank down again and put his ear to the ground came the sound of retreating footsteps.

The affair, unfinished in a way, so far as the vital issue was concerned, was concluded for the present, at least.  Ear and mind told Tayoga as clearly as if eye had seen.  His arrow had ploughed its path across Tandakora’s arm near the shoulder, inflicting a wound that would heal, but which was extremely painful and from which so much blood was coming that a quick bandage was needed.  Tandakora could no longer meet Tayoga with the bow and arrow and so he must retreat.  Nor was it likely that his first wound was yet more than half healed.

The Onondaga waited until he was sure his enemy was at least a half mile away, when he rose boldly and approached the place where Tandakora had last lain hidden.  He detected at once drops of dark blood on the leaves and grass, and he found his arrow, which Tandakora had snatched from the wound and thrown upon the ground.  He wiped the barb carefully and replaced it in his quiver.  Then he followed the trail at least three miles, a trail marked here and there by ruddy spots.