of the great advantage it might
give him, he would risk the attempt. Between where he was and the point
he must gain the thicket was thin; so, silently, slowly, he backed
himself--feet foremost--into his covert again, thrice his length or
more, then veering away to the right, he began--head foremost--making
his second approach. On regaining the edge of the thicket, he found the
savages as he had left them, five minutes before--the two smaller
Indians on the log, and now on the same dead-line with himself--so
nicely had he calculated the distances. Then taking his gun from his
back--where all this time it had lain--he raised himself slowly to one
knee, and cautiously thrusting his weapon through the leafy twigs before
him, took deliberate aim at the body of the grim savage. His finger was
already on the trigger, ready to give the fatal pull, when Bushie
plumped himself down on the log beside the young Indian, thus bringing
his own little body in the same line with the deadly missile, which in
an instant more would have come whizzing out of the thicket. With a
disappointed shake of the head Burl slowly lowered his piece, to wait
till the little boy, led by his wayward humor, should quit the perilous
seat. But, becoming the more interested in what was doing for his
amusement--now that the hatchet was nearly ready for him--Bushie seemed
in no haste to quit the place. What if the savages should shift their
position?--then indeed the signal advantage he now held, and had been at
so much pains and had run so much risk to secure, would be lost, and the
Fighting Nigger again reduced to desperate straits. Would the boy never
move? And waiting and watching, Big Black Burl lay close in ambush.

Chapter X.

HOW BIG BLACK BURL FIGURED IN THE FIGHT.

Will the boy never move? To the black hunter, there lying in ambush, the
suspense was becoming all but insupportable. With an interest far more
intense than that of the boy did he watch the nimble fingers of the
young Indian, as the whittling task went on--the heavy-footed seconds
creeping draggingly by, and made, by the suspense, to seem as long as
minutes. At last the hatchet was handled and delivered to the impatient
Bushie, who, the moment he received it, sprung forward to try its edge
on the bark of a large walnut that grew a few paces in front of them.
That same instant, while yet the pitying, good-humored smile, with which
he watched the movements of the little captive, w