unk out o' a persimmon log. I
tell 'ee, young 'un, we'll eyther be smoked out or smothered whur we
are; an' this child hain't fit Injun for thirty yeern or better, to go
under that a way. When it gets to its wurst I'm a-gwine to make a rush.
That's what I'm a-gwine ter do, young fellur."

"But how?" I asked, hurriedly; "how shall we act then?"

"How? Yur game to the toes, ain't 'ee?"

"I am willing to fight to the last."

"Wal, than, hyur's how, an' the only how: when they've raised the smoke
so that they can't see us a-comin', we'll streak it out among 'em. You
hev the pistol, an' kin go fo'most. Shoot every niggur that clutches at
ye, an' run like blazes! I'll foller clost on yur heels. If we kin
oncest git through the thick o' 'em, we mout make the brush, an' creep
under it to the big caves on t'other side. Them caves jines one
another, an' we mout dodge them thur. I seed the time this 'coon kud 'a
run a bit, but these hyur jeints ain't as soople as they wur oncest. We
kin try neverthemless; an' mind, young fellur, it's our only chance: do
'ee hear?"

I promised to follow the directions that my never-despairing companion
had given me.

"They won't get old Rube's scalp yit, they won't. He! he! he!"

I turned towards him. The man was actually laughing at this wild and
strangely-timed jest. It was awful to hear him.

Several armfuls of brush were now thrown into the mouth of the cave. I
saw that it was the creosote plant, the ideodondo.

It was thrown upon the still blazing torch, and soon caught, sending up
a thick, black smoke. More was piled on; and the fetid vapour, impelled
by some influence from without, began to reach our nostrils and lungs,
causing an almost instantaneous feeling of sickness and suffocation. I
could not have borne it long. I did not stay to try how long, for at
that moment I heard Rube crying out--

"Now's your time, young fellur! Out, and gi' them fits!"

With a feeling of desperate resolve, I clutched my pistol and dashed
through the smoking brushwood. I heard a wild and deafening shout. I
saw a crowd of men--of fiends. I saw spears, and tomahawks, and red
knives raised, and--

CHAPTER FORTY NINE.

A NOVEL MODE OF EQUITATION.

When consciousness returned, I found that I was lying on the ground, and
my dog, the innocent cause of my captivity, was licking my face. I
could not have been long senseless, for the savages were still
gesticulating violently