This discovery put new life into Nathan, and he determined to get to shore and search for his friends, if they were still alive. But as he was about to let go of the rock he heard a noise from the north bank, in which direction he was facing. Here the slope was less precipitous than above, and was heavily timbered. Some person was descending toward the stream at a recklessly rapid speed. Loosened stones rolled down to the water with a splash. Here and there amid the trees and bushes a dark form showed at intervals. Was it friend or foe? Nathan asked himself, and all too soon the question was answered. The noise suddenly ceased, and from out the fringe of laurel at the base of the slope peered a man's face--a hideous countenance with but one eye, and with skin like wrinkled parchment slashed by a quillful of purple ink. It needed not a glimpse of a dingy buckskin jacket with horn buttons to tell Nathan that this was the terrible Simon Glass. The face was followed by a long-barrelled musket, but the ruffian did not at once raise it to his shoulder. He stared keenly at the lad for a moment, and then grinned like a fiend. "No mistake about it, that's him," he muttered aloud. "Die, you dirty rebel," he added, levelling the gun and squinting along the tube with his one eye. Nathan heard the first words so indistinctly that they caused him no wonder, but the sentence that followed chilled his very blood. He could neither move nor utter a sound as he faced the death that seemed certain. A spell was upon him. He was charmed into helplessness by the musket's black mouth--by the ghastly grin on the one-eyed Tory's face. A few seconds slipped by, and they were like so many minutes to the tortured lad. Then, just as Glass pressed the trigger, a fusillade of musketry rang out from some point up the bluff. Bang! went the Tory's gun, but the surprise of the shooting overhead had fortunately spoilt his aim. The bullet hit the rock within two inches of Nathan's face, and a shower of splintered chips flew around him. Crack!--crack!--crack!--crack!--crack! The muskets were blazing merrily, and there was a din of yells and cheers. Nathan looked up, and saw two figures dart across the pine-tree bridge. A third had gained the centre when a bullet sent him plunging down to the creek. The lad let go of the rock, dived, and came to the surface. Over on the bank Simon Glass was reloading. He had driven the powder in, when the firing suddenly ceased, and now he seemed to hesitate. "Help! help!" Nathan yelled loudly. There was an answering shout from the summit of the gorge, and then a crashing noise. The Tory glanced above him, tossed his partly loaded musket over his shoulder, and ran swiftly down the edge of the stream. He was soon hidden from sight in the bushes. "That you, Nathan?" called a familiar voice. Nathan answered lustily, and a dozen strokes brought him to shore just as Barnabas Otter reached the foot of the bluff.