With four more of their number down, the Creeks let fly a perfect rain of arrows; their rifles rang out in a scattered volley, and they came on vengefully. But the ready bow of the Cherokee continued to twang; the rifles of the two young marksmen were reloaded and again laid a brace of warriors low. This was too much for the Creeks; all their ideas of warfare, which was to fight from cover, were against this method of attack. They were in an open position and their enemies were out of sight; it looked like death to advance, so promptly, with the last shots of the two rifles, they broke and fled out of range. “They don’t seem to have much appetite for lead,” said Jack, as he cleaned out his rifle barrel with a bit of cloth, and proceeded to reload. Frank duplicated this performance; then with a very sober countenance he said to his friend: “I say, Jack, as that gang of savages were coming on shooting and yelling like all possessed, it struck me that we were in a rather desperate situation.” Jack Davis pulled a wry face. “I never want to see a worse one,” said he, quietly enough, but with a look in his eyes which Frank had never seen there before. “What do you think of our chances of pulling out of it?” asked Frank, his gaze going to the Indian bands, clustered in council, well out of range. “Well,” said Jack, “there’s a lot of them, and if they could get at us, they’d soon make an end of the thing.” “It needs only a rush,” said Frank. “If they had kept at it a few minutes more, it would have done for us.” “But they didn’t keep at it,” spoke Jack. “And that is the only real thing that we can count on. It’s not the Indian nature to stand up unprotected in the face of rifle fire. Their training is to hunt cover, to stalk their enemy, to creep up and jump on him when he’s not looking for it. One-quarter as many white men would have taken this knoll at the first rush, seeing that there are only three to defend it. But Injuns are different.” He pointed with one outstretched arm toward the discomfited savages. “They have the worst of it and they know it. It’ll surprise me a good deal if they pull themselves together enough to make another attack.” “What!” Frank Lawrence looked at his friend in surprise. “Do you mean to say there is any chance of their giving up the attempt--of letting us escape?” But Jack shook his head. “No,” he said, gravely, “not quite that. But as there is no cover for the redskins on the sides of this knoll, no trees, no rocks, no stumps or anything like that, they might wait for a kind of cover that’s to be found anywhere.” “What’s that?” asked Frank. “Darkness.”