ong the margin of a wood
which seemed to mark the position of a river of considerable size.

At this moment his horse put his foot into a badger-hole, and both of
them came heavily to the ground. In an instant Dick rose, picked up
his gun, and leaped unhurt into the saddle. But on urging his poor
horse forward he found that its shoulder was badly sprained.

There was no room for mercy, however--life and death were in the
balance--so he plied the lash vigorously, and the noble steed warmed
into something like a run, when again it stumbled, and fell with
a crash on the ground, while the blood burst from its mouth and
nostrils. Dick could hear the shout of triumph uttered by his
pursuers.

"My poor, poor horse!" he exclaimed in a tone of the deepest
commiseration, while he stooped and stroked its foam-studded neck.

The dying steed raised its head for a moment, it almost seemed as
if to acknowledge the tones of affection, then it sank down with a
gurgling groan.

Dick sprang up, for the Indians were now upon him, and bounded like an
antelope into the thickest of the shrubbery; which was nowhere
thick enough, however, to prevent the Indians following. Still, it
sufficiently retarded them to render the chase a more equal one than
could have been expected. In a few minutes Dick gained a strip of open
ground beyond, and found himself on the bank of a broad river, whose
evidently deep waters rushed impetuously along their unobstructed
channel. The bank at the spot where he reached it was a sheer
precipice of between thirty and forty feet high. Glancing up and
down the river he retreated a few paces, turned round and shook his
clenched fist at the savages, accompanying the action with a shout of
defiance, and then running to the edge of the bank, sprang far out
into the boiling flood and sank.

The Indians pulled up on reaching the spot. There was no possibility
of galloping down the wood-encumbered banks after the fugitive; but
quick as thought each Red-man leaped to the ground, and fitting an
arrow to his bow, awaited Dick's re-appearance with eager gaze.

Young though he was, and unskilled in such wild warfare, Dick knew
well enough what sort of reception he would meet with on coming to the
surface, so he kept under water as long as he could, and struck out as
vigorously as the care of his rifle would permit. At last he rose for
a few seconds, and immediately half-a-dozen arrows whizzed through the
air; but most of t