The Susquehannock met him. "A chief for a chief," he said with a cold smile, and the two locked together in a deadly embrace. When the Ricahecrian was dead, the Susquehannock turned to find Landless—one Indian dead before him, another writhing away like a wounded snake—confronting across the body at his feet the graceful figure and the amber-hued, evil, smiling face of Luiz Sebastian. So strong were the flames by now, and so dense and stifling the smoke, that of the score or more who had broken into the cabin but few remained within its walls, which were fast becoming those of a furnace, the majority retreating to the fresh air outside, whence they whooped on to their devil’s work the bolder spirits within. These now bore down _en masse_ upon the devoted three. One threw his tomahawk; it whistled within half an inch of Landless’s head, and stuck into the wall behind him. Another struck at him with his knife, but he beat him down with his musket, and turned again to the mulatto, who, knife in hand, watched his chance to run in upon him. "Look to the yellow slave, my brother," cried the Susquehannock, "I will care for these dogs," and hurled his gigantic form upon them. One went down before his knife; he broke the back of another, bending him like a reed across his knee; a third fell, cleft to the brain by his tomahawk—there was a fresh influx from without, and he was borne down and knives thrust into him. Struggling to his feet, with one last superhuman exertion of his vast strength, he shook them off as a stag shakes off the dogs, and stretching out his arm, cried to Landless, dimly seen through the ever thickening smoke;— "My brother, farewell! I said we should find Death in the Blue Mountains.... The Iroquois laughs at the Algonquin dogs, laughs at Death—dies laughing." He broke into wild, unearthly, choking laughter, his figure swaying to and fro like a pine in a storm. The laughter, an indescribable and most dreadful sound, became low, choked, a mere rattle in the throat, died into silence, and the laugher crashed to the ground like a pine for which the storm has been too much. Landless drew a breath that was like a moan, but kept his eyes upon the yellow menace before him. "The Ricahecrians are my good friends," said Luiz Sebastian. "They promise me a wigwam in their village in the Blue Mountains. I shall lead to it a bride, and she shall be no Indian girl." Landless struck at him over the dead body between them, but the mulatto, springing back, avoided the blow. "It is my hour," he said, still with a smile.