and's deadly rifle struck it, so the attempt was abandoned.

While this was going on, March Marston galloped to Dick's cave, and
startled poor Mary not a little by the abruptness of his entrance. But,
to his mortification, Dick was not at home. It so chanced that that
wild individual had taken it into his head to remain concealed in the
woods near the spot where he had parted from his late guest, and had not
only witnessed the meeting of March with his friends, but had seen the
arrival of Macgregor, the subsequent departure of March in the direction
of the cave, and the attack made by the Indians. When, therefore, the
youth was speeding towards his cavern, the Wild Man (who was not sorry
to see him go off on such an errand), was busily planning the best mode
of attacking the enemy so as to render effectual aid to the trappers.

Observing that the Indians had clustered together at the foot of a
rugged cliff, apparently for the purpose of holding a council of war,
Dick made his way quickly to the summit of the cliff, and, leaving his
charger on an eminence that sloped down towards the entrance of the
valley, quickly and noiselessly carried several huge stones to the edge
of the precipice, intending to throw them down on the heads of his foes.
Just as he was about to do so, he observed an overhanging mass of rock,
many tons in weight, which the frosts of winter had detached from the
precipice. Placing his feet against this, and leaning his back against
the solid rock, he exerted himself with all his might, like a second
Samson. No human power could have moved such a rock, had it not been
almost overbalanced; but, being so, Dick's effort moved it. Again he
strained, until the great veins seemed about to burst through the skin
of his neck and forehead. Gradually the rock toppled and fell, and the
Wild Man fell along with it.

In the agony of that moment he uttered a cry so terrible that it might
well have been supposed to have come from the throat of a supernatural
being. The Indians had not time to evade the danger. The ponderous
mass in its descent hit a projecting crag, and burst into smaller
fragments, which fell in a rattling shower, killing two men, and
wounding others. Those of the group who escaped, as well as those who
chanced to be beyond the danger, saw, by the dim moonlight, the Wild Man
of the West descending, as it were, like a furious demon in the midst of
the dire confusion of dust and rocks. They