In one of these moralising, wandering moods the old hunter was seated on a tree stump on the afternoon of a day that had been more than usually fatiguing to him. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, took a plug of tobacco from his pouch, and began to cut up a supply for another smoke. "Ah!" muttered he, shaking his head, "I remember the time when there was happiness in the savannahs, and when them red-skins were ready to help the white man rather than fight agin them. Them times is gone from hyar for ever!" He struck a light with his flint, and applied it to his pipe. Just as he had puffed two or three small clouds of smoke, and was preparing to enjoy himself to the fullest extent, a flash suddenly appeared, the pipe was knocked from his mouth, and the whizz of a bullet sounded in his ears! To grasp his rifle and shelter himself behind a tree, on the side opposite to that from which the shot proceeded, was but the work of an instant. "Red-skins, by the eternal! I know it by the twang of that rough-cast bullet." Whether red-skins or white men, he did not find it easy to be certain, although he was up to every move in such an emergency. He knew that to look in the direction of the shot was to expose himself to almost certain death. He listened with breathless anxiety for the slightest sound, which might give evidence of the movements of the enemy. All remained perfectly still. Adopting a very old _ruse_, he stuck his skin cap upon the barrel of his rifle, and held it out a few inches beyond the trunk of the tree, by the side of which he had ensconced himself. A flash, a report, and it was pierced by a bullet! He was now fully satisfied that there was but one enemy with whom he had to cope. Had there been more, the first bullet, which struck the pipe from his mouth, would have been followed by another as quickly, but perhaps more surely aimed. With a rapid glance he surveyed the ground behind him. It was covered with undergrowth and fallen timber. His resolution was at once taken. He fell flat upon the earth, and noiselessly gliding away reached a tree, distant some paces, and in an oblique direction from the one he had left. From that spot he made his way to another, at a greater angle, and about equally distant from the second. The movements were affected with such agile stealthiness, as to be entirely unperceived by his unseen enemy. By the change of position he now commanded a side view of his unknown antagonist, who, unsuspicious of it, was keeping a close watch upon Carrol's supposed shelter. To raise his rifle to his shoulder was a natural action of the old hunter. Instead of pulling the trigger, however, some idea seemed to cross his mind, and pausing, he scanned his adversary. He saw it was Maracota who had fired at him! Carrol knew Maracota as a faithful and devoted follower of the late chief, and he felt loth to take his life, although he might easily have done so. The better thought prevailed.