n of them like
blood-stains.

They hurried down the slant, brushing through the thicket, the sound of
their approach being covered by the appalling cries of the victim and
the demon-like tumult of the drunken braves. The two scouts were
racked with soul pain as they went on so that they could scarcely hold
their peace and keep their feet from running. A new sense of the
capacity for evil in the heart of man entered the mind of Jack. They
had come close to the frightful scene, when suddenly a deep silence
fell upon it. Thank God, the victim had gone beyond the reach of pain.
Something had happened in his passing--perhaps the savages had thought
it a sign from Heaven. For a moment their clamor had ceased. The two
scouts could plainly see the poor man behind a red veil of flame.
Suddenly the white leader of the raiders approached the pyre, limping
on his wooden stump, with a stick in his hand, and prodded the face of
the victim. It was his last act. Solomon was taking aim. His rifle
spoke. Red Snout tumbled forward into the fire. Then what a scurry
among the Indians! They vanished and so suddenly that Jack wondered
where they had gone. Solomon stood reloading the rifle barrel he had
just emptied. Then he said:

"Come on an' do as I do."

Solomon ran until they had come near. Then he jumped from tree to
tree, stopping at each long enough to survey the ground beyond it.
This was what he called "swapping cover." From behind a tree near the
fire he shouted in the Indian tongue:

"Red men, you have made the Great Spirit angry. He has sent the Son of
the Thunder to slay you with his lightning."

No truer words had ever left the lips of man. His hand rose and swung
back of his shoulder and shot forward. The round missile sailed
through the firelight and beyond it and sank into black shadows in the
great cavern at Rocky Creek--a famous camping-place in the old time.
Then a flash of white light and a roar that shook the hills! A blast
of gravel and dust and debris shot upward and pelted down upon the
earth. Bits of rock and wood and an Indian's arm and foot fell in the
firelight. A number of dusky figures scurried out of the mouth of the
cavern and ran for their lives shouting prayers to Manitou as they
disappeared in the darkness. Solomon pulled the embers from around the
feet of the victim.

"Now, by the good God A'mighty, 'pears to me we got the skeer shifted
so the red man'll be the rabbit fer a w