Polly Ann and I stared transfixed at the fearful fight that followed, nor can I give any adequate description of it.  Weldon had struck through the brambles, but the savage had taken the blow on his gun-barrel and broken the handle of the tomahawk, and it was man to man as they rolled in the shallow water, locked in a death embrace.  Neither might reach for his knife, neither was able to hold the other down, Weldon’s curses surcharged with hatred. the Indian straining silently save for a gasp or a guttural note, the white a bearded madman, the savage a devil with a glistening, paint-streaked body, his features now agonized as his muscles strained and cracked, now lighted with a diabolical joy.  But the pent-up rage of months gave the white man strength.

Polly Ann and I were powerless for fear of shooting Weldon, and gazed absorbed at the fiendish scene with eyes not to be withdrawn.  The tree-trunk shook.  A long, bronze arm reached out from above, and a painted face glowered at us from the very roots where Weldon had lain.  That moment I took to be my last, and in it I seemed to taste all eternity, I heard but faintly a noise beyond.  It was the shock of the heavy Indian falling on Polly Ann and me as we cowered under the trunk, and even then there was an instant that we stood gazing at him as at a worm writhing in the clay.  It was she who fired the pistol and made the great hole in his head, and so he twitched and died.  After that a confusion of shots, war-whoops, a vision of two naked forms flying from tree to tree towards the cane, and then—­God be praised—­Tom’s voice shouting:—­

“Polly Ann!  Polly Ann!”

Before she had reached the top of the bank Tom had her in his arms, and a dozen tall gray figures leaped the six feet into the stream and stopped.  My own eyes turned with theirs to see the body of poor Weldon lying face downward in the water.  But beyond it a tragedy awaited me.  Defiant, immovable, save for the heaving of his naked chest, the savage who had killed him stood erect with folded arms facing us.  The smoke cleared away from a gleaming rifle-barrel, and the brave staggered and fell and died as silent as he stood, his feathers making ripples in the stream.  It was cold-blooded, if you like, but war in those days was to the death, and knew no mercy.  The tall backwoodsman who had shot him waded across the stream, and in the twinkling of an eye seized the scalp-lock and ran it round with his knife, holding up the bleeding trophy with a shout.  Staggering to my feet, I stretched myself, but I had been cramped so long that I tottered and would have fallen had not Tom’s hand steadied me.

“Davy!” he cried.  “Thank God, little Davy! the varmints didn’t get ye.”

“And you, Tom?” I answered, looking up at him, bewildered with happiness.

“They was nearer than I suspicioned when I went off,” he said, and looked at me curiously.  “Drat the little deevil,” he said affectionately, and his voice trembled, “he took care of Polly Ann, I’ll warrant.”