aked except for the piece
of blanketing, for a distance of about two hundred miles. He was the
true never-say-die kind, and lived for many a year yet, to tell of his
adventures and to put them upon paper.

James Paull had reached home before him, and before Doctor Knight also.
James was only twenty-two, but he was an old hand at Indian fighting
and at scouting. And he was a lad of great spirit, as will now be
shown.

When the Indians had fired into the party and then had called upon them
to surrender, he had been the one to dodge and run. His foot was very
lame from a burn. During the battle his mess had baked bread by
spreading the dough upon the back of a spade, scout fashion. Somebody
had tossed the hot spade aside, and he had stepped upon it with his
bare foot. The burn was a bad one; during the retreat his foot got
worse and he could scarcely walk on it.

But now with two Indians chasing him, he paid no attention to his foot.
He out-ran them, leaped down the steep bank of a creek, and in landing
tore all the skin from his blistered sole. He paid attention to it
then. Had to! A man with a flayed foot cannot do much, in the brush.

Luckily for him, the two Indians gave him up. He halted long enough to
bind his raw foot with a piece of his trousers. He could not travel
fast, but he used his wits. He knew all the tricks of the trail. He
hobbled along fallen logs, so as to leave no marks. He back-tracked,
in a circle, to cross his own trail and see if he was being followed.
He painfully shinned up trees, wormed out to the end of a branch, and
dropped as far beyond his trail as he might, so as to break it. This
would throw off the dogs, if dogs were used; yes, and it would fool the
Indians, too.

That night he slept in a hollow log. By morning his foot had swollen
to the size of a bucket. He suffered torment. He had no food with him
and was afraid to fire his gun. So this day he ate only a few berries.

To-night he slept like a bear, on a bed of leaves in a crack in a rock.
In the morning he sighted a deer. What with his pain and his hunger he
was desperate. He shot the deer, cut it open with his gun-flint, and
chewed at the bloody flesh.

This evening he came to an old Indian camp. Several empty whiskey-kegs
were lying around. That gave him an idea. He could have a fire, to
cook with. By building the fire underneath a keg, after dark, there
would be no light, and the smoke could not be s