He rallied like a man, and we raced on with fresh speed. Indeed, as I look back upon it, I see that he did miraculously well for one so unused to the exercise. Five minutes later we came to a small brook crossing our path from left to right toward the Kenneticook. It was a place of low, brushy shrubs under large trees. “Keep close to me,” I whispered, “and look sharp. We’ll stop right here.” I stepped into the middle of the brook, and he did likewise, carefully. Setting our feet with precaution to disturb no stones, we descended the stream some twenty paces, then crept ashore beneath the thick growth, and lay at full length like logs. “You must get your breathing down to silence absolute,” I whispered; “they will be here in two minutes.” In half a minute he had his laboring lungs in harness. Though within an arm’s length of him I could hear no sound. But I could hear our pursuers thrashing along on our trail. In a minute they were at the brook, to find the trail cut short. I caught snatches of their guttural comment, and laughed in my sleeve as I realized that Anderson’s very weakness was going to serve our ends. The savages never dreamed that any one could be winded from so short a run. Had their quarry gone up the brook or down it, was all their wonder. Unable to decide, they split into two parties, going either way. From the corner of my eye, violently twisted, I marked seven redskins loping past down stream. When they were out of hearing, I touched Anderson on the shoulder. “Come,” said I, “now is our time.” “That was neat, very,” he muttered, with a quiet little chuckle, rising and throwing off the underbrush like an ox climbing out of his August wallow. “Straight ahead now for the creek,” I whispered, crossing the brook; but a sound from behind made me turn. There stood a huge savage, much astonished at the apparition of us. His astonishment was our salvation. It delayed his signal yell. As his breath drew in for it and I sprang with my sword, the Englishman was upon him naked-handed. He forgot his stick; which indeed was well, for his two hands at the redskin’s throat best settled the matter of the signal. For a Quaker, whom I have heard to be peaceful folk, Anderson seemed to me a good deal in earnest. Big and supple though the savage was, he was choked in half a minute and his head knocked against a tree. Anderson let him drop, a limp carcass, upon the underbrush, and stood over him panting and clenching his fingers, ready to try a new hold. I examined the painted mass. “Not dead, quite!” said I. “But he’s as good as dead for an hour, I should say. I think perhaps we need not finish him.” “Better finish him, and make sure,” urged Anderson, to my open astonishment. “He may stir up trouble for us later.” But I was firm. I like, positively like, to kill my man in fair fight; but once down he’s safe from me, though he were the devil himself.