At the front rode Johnson. Neck and neck with him rode Jack, heading for the very center of the British line. Not for all the devils in h--l would he have fallen back an inch. For a moment blinding smoke filled his eyes. Right and left ran the red flash of the British rifles. Then he was among the trees, plunging through a line of redcoated men, who reeled and ran, throwing down their guns as they went. “Quarter! Quarter!” The cry rang loud above the crash of falling arms. Jack did not heed it. A second line, fringed with flames, was rising behind the first. Midway of it, through the smoke, he saw Brito’s face. At it he drove. “Wait for me,” he yelled. But Brito did not wait. Before the rush of the maddened horses the second line was breaking up, dissolving into fragments. To wait was to surrender or to die, and Brito had no mind for either. Probably he did not hear Jack’s challenge. Certainly he did not wait. As the line dissolved he turned and fled, bending low upon his horse’s neck. Jack glanced neither to the right nor to the left. His eyes were fixed only on his foe. For an instant the roar of battle rose around him. Rifles flashed in his face. Men struck at him with sabers and clubbed guns. Then he was out of the ruck, crashing through the autumn woods. Saplings lashed at him with stinging strokes. Low-hung branches scraped his horse’s back, dragging at him. Thickets, seemingly impassable, broke before the impetus of his rush. Then, abruptly the roar of battle died away. The flickering rifle flames vanished. Then far to his left a second roar arose; Jack did not know it, but it was Colonel Johnson and his first squadron striking the Indian line, and it sounded the knell of the great chief, Tecumseh. Jack paid no attention to it; heart and soul alike were concentrated on the rider whose red coat he saw far ahead through the packed woods. Recklessly he spurred. After a time the woods opened and he saw his enemy clearer. He was gaining rapidly, too rapidly. He was in no haste to bring his foe to bay. His horse, a bright bay, bred in Kentucky and brought north with Johnson’s regiment, had come through the short, sharp battle without a wound and was in perfect condition, well rested, and capable both of long pursuit and of extraordinary bursts of speed when need should arise. He knew nothing of Brito’s horse, except the patent fact that it was a big black that seemed to carry its heavy rider with ease, but he had little doubt that his own was better. Almost at will he could close in and sooner or later he meant to do so and to balance the long-due account between himself and Brito. But he did not know where Alagwa was. Brito did. Therefore Brito should lead him to her.