smoke, but I drew trigger too, and staggered back
with the violent concussion of the piece.

Then I stood aghast at what followed, for as the smoke lifted I saw an
Indian spring on Morgan, and Hannibal drop the gun he held as the other
two Indians rushed at him axe in hand, yelling horribly.

Then in what seemed to me was a nightmare dream, I saw Morgan seize the
Indian's hand, and they closed in a desperate struggle, while on my
other side Hannibal was battling with two, and I was helpless to assist
either, and--well, I was a boy of sixteen or so, and how could I at
close quarters like that try to shed blood?

True, in the excitement of the flight in the boat, I had loaded and
fired again and again as the Indians kept sending their arrows at us;
but all I could do now was to drop my own piece and run to pick up the
one Hannibal had dropped.

But I did not fire it. I could only stand and gaze first at one, and
then at the other, as I saw the great calm black now frenzied with rage
and the thirst for battle. He was bleeding from blows given by the
knife of one Indian and the axe of the other, but his wounds only seemed
to have made him furious, and he stood there now looking like a giant,
holding one of his enemies by the throat, the other by the wrist, in
spite of their writhings and desperate efforts to strike him some deadly
blow. He looked to me then like a giant in strength; but the Indians
were strong too, and though he was rapidly subduing the one whose throat
he grasped, the other was gradually wriggling himself free, when,
seizing my opportunity, rendered desperate by the position, I raised the
heavy piece I held as if it were a club, and brought the barrel down
with all my might upon the Indian's head.

I stepped back sickened by what I had done, as his arm relaxed and he
fell prone, while, freed now from one adversary whose axe would the next
moment have brained him, Hannibal grasped his remaining enemy with both
hands, raised him up, and dashed him heavily upon the earth.

It was time, for Morgan was down, the Indian upon him, his knife raised
high to plunge into the poor fellow's throat, but held back by Morgan's
hand, which was yielding fast.

I stood paralysed and watching, when, with a roar like a wild beast,
Hannibal dashed at this last man, and with the axe he had at his waist
struck him full in the temple, and he dropped down sidewise quivering in
death.

I remember thinking it very horribl