cover on the forest side of the holly thicket with a yell as fierce as
theirs, and picked a tree to set my back against, and ran for it.

I never reached the tree. In mid career, when all the Cherokee wolf pack
was bursting through the holly tangle at my heels, two men, a white man
and an Indian, ran in ahead, as I supposed to cut me off. Just then the
dry roof of the hunting lodge roared aflame, reddening the forest far
and near. The light was at my back and on the faces of the two who ran
to meet me. A great sob swelled in my throat and choked me, but I ran
the faster. For these were my dear lad and the friendly Catawba,
charging gallantly to cover my retreat.

It was a ready help in time of need. They ran in bravely, the chief
ahead, twirling his tomahawk for the throw, with Dick a pace to right
and rear, his two great pistols brandished and the grandsire of all the
broadswords dangling by a thong at his wrist.

"Follow the chief!" he shouted in passing; and at the word the Catawba
stopped short, sent his hatchet whistling into the yapping pack behind
me, and swerved to run aside and point the way for me.

Left to myself, I hope I should have had the grace to stand with
Jennifer. But at the turning point of indecision the quick-witted Indian
read my thought, and snatching the sword from my hand, gave me no choice
but to follow him.

So I ran with him; but as I fled I looked behind and saw a sight to put
the ancient hero tales to the blush. One man against two-score my brave
Dick stood, while through the underwood the mounted soldiery came to
make the odds still greater.

He never flinched for all the hurtling missiles sent on ahead to cut him
down, nor gave a glance aside to where the horsemen were deploying to
surround him. As I looked, the two great pistols belched in the very
faces of the nearest Cherokees; and in the momentary check the firearms
made, the basket-hilted claymore went to work, rising and falling like a
weaver's beam.

I saw no more; but some heart-bursting minutes later, when Jennifer came
racing on behind to share the flight his heroic stand had made a
possibility, the swelling sob choked me once again; and when I thought
of what this his rescue of me meant to him, I could have blubbered like
a boy.

But there was little time or space to give remorse an inning. The
Cherokees, checked but for the moment, were storming hotly at our heels.
And as we ran I heard the shouted command of Falcon