down the musket with the
other, and fired through the nearest loophole. My pursuers were coming
on fairly in a body, and the distance was such that the swanshot
scattered just enough to cover the foremost warriors. One fell dead and
three more were wounded. In a twinkling all others than the one killed
leaped to either side and checked their rush.

"But their chief came bounding up from the rear through their midst,
flourishing his bloody tomahawk and yelling to them to come on. Young as
I was, if given a support for the heavy barrel, I could handle my
father's rifle as well as he himself. The chief fell within twenty paces
of the door, with the hole of the rifle ball between his glaring eyes.
At this, fearful that they had run upon a trap, the red warriors ran
dodging and side-leaping to the nearest brush, while I caught up a knife
and rushed out to scalp the chief--"

"_Por Dios!_" cried Don Pedro. "You ran out!--you took the scalp of the
chief under the eyes of his followers?"

"My mother's scalp hung at his belt. I was mad with fury. I would have
struck the murderer even had the others already turned."

"They did turn?" asked Alisanda, her eyes widening with the horror of
the vision she pictured.

"They turned as I burst from the cabin. I was surrounded--seized
fast--but not before I had torn off the scalp of their chief and shaken
it in their painted faces!" My eyes flamed at the memory of that fierce
vengeance.

"_Madre de Dios!_" breathed the Spaniard--"You stung them to wildest
fury!"

"I sought to make them strike me down. Better death under the tomahawk
than the slow agony of torture at the stake. What greater shame to them
than for a boy of twelve to kill two of their most famous warriors,--to
taunt them with the bloody scalp of their chief?"

"Yet they spared you!" whispered Alisanda, her eyes fixed upon my
flushed face.

"For the torture. When they took me north to the Shawnee towns, I was
made to run the gantlet. Being quick-footed and nimble, I avoided most
of the heavier blows and midway of the line dodged out sideways,
tripping up the old squaw who sought to stop me. Before the rabble could
overtake me, I had set myself in the midst of the chiefs and foremost
warriors of the village, whose dignity had prevented them from joining
in the lesser torture.

"My craft in tripping the squaw and avoiding the greater number of my
tormentors won me the protection of the chiefs, and while they waved o