The Onondaga fell without a cry before the horrified eyes of his comrade, and then, as Robert heard a shout of triumph, he saw an Indian, horribly painted, rush forward to seize what he believed to be a Mohawk scalp.

Young Lennox, filled with grief and rage, stood straight up, and a stream of fire fairly poured from the muzzle of his rifle as his bullet met the exultant warrior squarely in the heart.  The savage fell like a log, having no time to utter his death cry, and paying no further attention to him, feeling that he must be merely a stray warrior from the main band, Robert turned to his fallen comrade.

Tayoga was unconscious, and was bleeding profusely from a wound in the right shoulder.  Robert seized his wrist and felt his pulse.  He was not dead, because he detected a faint beat, but it was quite evident that the wound from a big musket bullet had come near to cutting the thread of life.

For a moment or two Lennox was in despair, while his heart continued to swell with grief and rage.  It was unthinkable that the noblest young Onondaga of them all, one fit to be in his time the greatest of sachems, the very head and heart of the League, should be cut down by a mere skulker.  And yet it had happened.  Tayoga lay, still wholly unconscious, and the sounds of firing to the eastward were increasing.  A battle had begun there.  Perhaps the full forces of both sides were now in conflict.

The combat called to Robert, he knew that he might bear a great part in it, but he never hesitated.  Such a thought as deserting his stricken comrade could not enter his mind.  He listened a moment longer to the sounds of the conflict now growing more fierce, and then, fastening Tayoga’s rifle on his back with his own, he lifted his wounded comrade in his arms and walked westward, away from the battle.

CHAPTER XI

THE COMRADES

Robert settled the inert form of the Onondaga against his left shoulder, and, being naturally very strong, with a strength greatly increased by a long life in the woods, he was able to carry the weight easily.  He had no plan yet in his mind, merely a vague resolve to carry Tayoga outside the fighting zone and then do what he could to resuscitate him.  It was an unfortunate chance that the hostile flankers had cut in between him and the main force of Rogers, but it could not be helped, and the farther he was from his own people the safer would he and Tayoga be.

Two hundred yards more and putting his comrade on the ground he cut away the deerskin, disclosing the wound.  The bullet had gone almost through the shoulder, and as he felt of its path he knew with joy that it had touched no bone.  Then, unless the loss of blood became great, it could not prove mortal.  But the bullet was of heavy type, fired from the old smoothbore musket and the shock had been severe.  Although it had not gone quite through the shoulder he could feel it near the surface, and he decided at once upon rude but effective surgery.