He saw presently a dark figure passing from one tree to another and the passage was long enough for him to take a good aim at a hideously painted breast. He pulled the trigger and then involuntarily he shut his eyes--he was a hunter, but he had never hunted men before. When he looked again he saw a blur upon the ground, and despite himself and the fight for life, he shuddered. Paul beside him was now in a state of wild excitement. The smaller boy's nerves were not so steady and he was loading and firing almost at random. Finally he lifted himself almost unconsciously to his full height, but he was dragged down the next instant, as if he had been seized from below by a bear. "Paul!" fiercely exclaimed the schoolmaster, all the instincts of a pedagogue rising within him, "if you jump up that way again exposing yourself to their bullets, I'll turn you over my knee right here, big as you are, and give you a licking that you'll remember all your life!" The master was savagely in earnest and Paul did not jump up again. Henry fired once more, and a third time and the tumult rose to its height. Then it ceased so suddenly and so absolutely that the silence was appalling. The wind blew the smoke away, a few dark objects lay close to the ground among the trees before them, but not a sound came from the forest, and no flitting form was there. CHAPTER IX THE ESCAPE Henry and Paul, with their eyes at the crevices, stared and stared, but they saw only those dark, horrible forms lying close to the earth, and heard again the peaceful wind blowing among the peaceful trees. The savage army had melted away as if it had never been, and the dark objects might have been taken for stones or pieces of wood. "We beat 'em off, an' nobody on our side has more'n a scratch," exclaimed Shif'less Sol jubilantly. "That's so," said Ross, casting a critical eye down the line, "it's because we had a good position an' made ready. There's nothin' like takin' a thing in time. How're you, boys?" "All right, but I've been pretty badly scared I can tell you," replied Paul frankly. "But we are not hurt, are we, Henry?" "Thank God," murmured the schoolmaster under his breath, and then he said aloud to Ross: "I suppose they'll leave us alone now." Ross shook his head. "I wish I could say it," he replied, "but I can't. We've laid out four of 'em, good and cold, an' the Shawnees, like all the other redskins, haven't much stomach for a straightaway attack on people behind breastworks; I don't think they'll try that again, but they'll be up to new mischief soon. We must watch out now for tricks. Them's sly devils."