Looking around, I saw that Mistress Morley and Mistress Stockbridge were dragging the wounded lads yet farther into the cavern, where they might the better be sheltered from a stray bullet, and heard Elias Shendle say, hoarsely: “It is the children who should be thus protected; not we lads, who are of no good either to ourselves or our friends.” I was yet watching the movements of these brave-hearted women, when Giles discharged his weapon, and, turning suddenly, I saw lying almost directly in front of the opening the half-naked body of a dead Indian. The savages had come, but in what number it was impossible even to guess, and now was the time at hand when the lives of all within our place of refuge depended upon the watchfulness of Giles and myself. “How many did you see?” I asked, and he replied as he took up a loaded musket, pushing his empty one back that it might be recharged by Mistress Morley: “Only one, and it is not certain but that he may be the same at whom I fired before.” Then it was that I searched with my eyes every inch of that dusky form which could be seen lying so hideously still in front of us, hoping to find there the trace of a second bullet, but seeing none. Then came the disheartening realization that, when the day was done and darkness covered everything as with a veil, we could not prevent the red wolves from creeping up until, sheltered by the same boulders behind which we lay, they might shoot into the cave. I should have grown even more timorous than I was had I not shaken off such forebodings resolutely, and given myself wholly up to the task of watching for a target. So profound was the silence that when Mistress Morley, having loaded the weapon Giles had discharged, pushed it forward toward us, I started like one in fear, and was near to trembling so violently that she might have seen it. Not a sound from the outside broke the silence; nothing betokened the probable fact that the bloodthirsty enemy, perhaps in large numbers, were crouching within a few paces, hoping to kill, and a stranger who could have looked in on us then would have questioned why we two lads were lying there behind the rocks watching so intently through the narrow aperture. I believe ten minutes had passed in this distressing suspense, when Giles whispered, cautiously: “It is ten times worse than a battle, lying here where nothing can be seen, until one’s eyes become so tired that he fancies this bush or that is suddenly turned into one of John Butler’s demons.” I would have made reply in much the same strain, but at that moment the leaves to the right of our trail were moved aside in a direction contrary to the breeze which was blowing, and then I saw two fierce, eager eyes peering out from amid the leafy screen of green. [Illustration: “TAKING STEADY AIM ... I PULLED THE TRIGGER.”]