There was but one way possible for him to reach the camp, which was to dart aside, between his pursuers, and make a long circuit. He had not succeeded in reloading his rifle; with a pang of regret, he threw it down, for it encumbered him, in the exertions he was making, and putting every nerve to its utmost strain, he bounded aside and onward. Running like a deer, he soon had the relief of outstripping all his pursuers but one, a young chief, perhaps Messhawa, who displayed a swiftness and perseverance equal to his own. Here was a race worth seeing! With long, panther-like bounds, the agile Indian chased the fugitive, who scarcely knew whether he fled on air or earth. The distance between them on the start was about eighteen feet; the herculean efforts of Kennan could not make it one inch more, nor the equally powerful leaps of the savage make it one inch less. Kennan was at a great disadvantage. He had to watch the pending blow of his adversary, whose tomahawk was poised in the air, ready for the first favorable opportunity to be discharged at him. This gave him small chance to pick his footsteps with prudence. Growing tired of this contest of skill, in which neither gained, the ranger, seeing that no other Indian was near enough to interfere, resolved to end the matter by a hand-to-hand conflict. Feeling in his belt for his knife, he found that it was gone. "I'm tellin' the straight out-and-out truth, my friends," Kennan used to remark, when he related this adventure, "when I felt for sartin that knife was lost, my ha'r just lifted my cap off my head—it stood straight up—that's a fact!" But if fear lifted his hair up, it lifted his body up, likewise. The thought of his unarmed condition gave him wings, which, verily, he needed, for he had slackened his pace as he felt for his knife, and the tomahawk of his enemy was now almost at his shoulder. For the first time he gained ground a trifle. He had watched the motions of his pursuer so closely, however, as not to pay attention to the nature of the ground, so that he suddenly found himself in front of a large tree, which had been torn up by the winds, and whose dry branches and trunk made an obstacle eight or nine feet high. As he paused before this hindrance, the young chief gave a whoop of triumph. "Yell yer throat open, yer blasted red blood-hound!" thought the invincible Kentucky ranger. Putting his soul into the effort, he bounded into the air with a power which astonished himself as much as his pursuers; trunk, limbs, brush, were cleared—he alighted in perfect safety on the other side. A loud yell of amazement burst from the band of savages who witnessed the feat, which not even the young chief, Messhawa, had the hardihood to repeat.