Jim, who happened to be next to Steve, lifted a warning finger and then pointed below. A painted redskin, hideous in his feathered war-gear, slipped like a shadow from the trees and stood in the open, staring up over the ridge to the high land beyond. They saw him turn and call softly, and then, one by one, some hundred of his comrades flitted up to his side and stood staring at the white fugitives beyond. Some danced with joy and brandished their tomahawks, while one of their number turned and addressed them. "My children, these pale faces are ours," he said. "Within the hour their scalps shall hang at our belts. Climb the rise and enter the trees. Do not make a sound till they are enclosed by us. Then rush upon them and slay." He pointed to the ridge, and, leaping forward, led the way up the steep ascent. And as the whole party followed, their eyes fixed upon their leader or upon the summit of the rise, some twenty ponderous muskets went to as many stout shoulders, and sights were levelled upon the redskin demons clambering up the track. Steve rested his muzzle in the fork of a dwarfed tree and aligned the sights on the feathered chief who led the party. And there he waited, his cheek well down on the stock, his eye glued to the sights, and his finger pressing ever so gently on the trigger. He was as steady as the fork in which his weapon rested, for Steve was a hardened fighter by now, and he knew that the lives of all the women and children depended on the coolness and courage of himself and his comrades. He allowed nothing to frighten him, and where many would have pulled the trigger out of sheer excitement and inability to put up with the suspense any longer, he crouched there waiting, waiting. "About thirty yards I make it," he said to himself at last. "I'll give him another two seconds. That will get the others up a little closer. We want our bullets to strike more than one of the ruffians." Suddenly there was a loud report, a spurt of flame lit up the shadow in which he lay, while the leader of the Indians threw his hands into the air, howled in the most diabolical manner, and then fell backwards, to go sliding and bumping down the track till a fallen tree arrested further progress. A second later a volley came from the surrounding bushes, from behind rocks and boulders, while a storm of bullets plunged into the very centre of the huddled enemy. When the smoke blew away, Steve and his friends looked down upon an almost deserted track, cleared of Indians save for the bodies which lay prone on the hill-side or which rolled and slid down towards the bottom. Here and there in amongst the bushes on either hand the crash of a bough told that the enemy was there, but those sounds lasted only a few seconds, and presently figures flitted in amongst the trees down below.