rare intervals a
deep cheer from a borderer replied to the savage war whoop.

A man four stumps from Robert was hit in the head and died without
a sound, but Willet, firing at the flash of the rifle that slew him,
avenged his loss. A bullet grazed Robert's head, cutting off two locks
of hair very neatly. Its passage took his breath for a moment or two,
and gave him a shock, but he recovered quickly, and, still controlling
his impulse to pull trigger in haste, looked for something at which to
aim.

The fog had not lifted at all, but by gazing into its heart a long
time, Robert was able to see a little distance. Now and then the
figure of an enemy, as he leaped from the shelter of one stump to
another, was outlined dimly, but invariably there was not enough time
for a shot. Soon he made out a large stump not very far ahead of him,
and he saw the flash of a rifle from it. He caught a glimpse only of
the hands that held the weapon, but he believed them to be a white
man's hands and he believed also that the man behind the stump was one
of the best French sharpshooters.

Robert resolved to bring down the Frenchman, who presently, when
firing once more, might then expose enough of himself for a target. He
waited patiently and the second shot came. He saw the hands again, the
arms, part of one shoulder and the side of the head, and taking quick
aim he pulled the trigger, though he was satisfied that his bullet had
missed.

But the flame of battle was lighted in Robert's soul. Hating nobody
and wishing good to all, he nevertheless sought to kill, because some
one was seeking to kill him, and because killing was the business of
those about him. What came to be known later as mass psychology took
hold of him. All his mental and physical powers were concentrated on
the single task of slaying an enemy. The affair now resolved itself
into a duel between single foes.

Deciding to await a third shot from his enemy, he made his position
behind the stump a little easier, poised, as it were, ready to throw
every faculty, physical and mental, into his reply to that expected
third shot. He was quite sure, too, that he would have a chance,
because the man had exposed so much more of himself at the second
shot than at the first, and his escape from the bullets would make him
expose yet more at the third. His heart began to throb hard, and his
pulses were beating fast. The battle was still going on about him, but
he forgot all the res