e. The
tomahawk descended, but, fortunately for Hodges, his sudden movement
overturned the canoe at the very moment that the blow fell. This saved
his life. Clasping the knees of the Indian with the strength of
desperation, he brought him to the ground, and threw himself upon him.
The deadly scalping-knife was about to pierce his heart, when he caught
the wrist of the savage in his right hand, and with his left clutched
his throat. For a moment the Indian struggled, glared at him with an
expression of inveterate hate, and then his breath left him, his
features became distorted, and he let the knife fall. The next instant
it glittered in the hand of Hodges, and the Indian lay defenceless, his
antagonist's knee on his breast, awaiting, with set teeth and staring
eyes, the death which he deemed inevitable. During one second, the young
man appeared to hesitate; then he sprang to his feet.

"Go," said he; "I will not sully myself with your blood."

"My young brother is really a friend of the red men," said a voice
behind him.

Hodges turned, and beheld another Indian, a scalping-knife in his hand,
which he seemed about to plunge into his back. Springing on one side, he
confronted this new foe.

"My brother need not fear," said the second Indian, behind whom the
other had now retreated, not unlike a dog, who, feeling himself guilty
of a misdeed, creeps, with tail between his legs, behind the back of his
master. The new-comer surveyed him with a severe glance.

"Milimach," said he, "would have taken a scalp from a sleeping man, but
he has to thank the white youth that his own is still upon his head.
Milimach has disobeyed the Miko."

"Are you the Miko?" cried Hodges--"the Miko of the Oconees?"

The old man fixed his calm and penetrating look upon his interrogator,
and replied with much dignity, "My young brother has said it. He has
nothing to fear; the Miko stretches out to him his hand, in peace and
friendship."

"You the Miko of the Oconees?" repeated Hodges, grasping the Indian's
hand, and heartily shaking it. "I am delighted to see you; and, to say
the truth, I was on my way to your village."

"The maidens," said the chief, "told the Miko that the son of the great
father who owns the two Canadas, had escaped from the chief of the Salt
Lake, and sought shelter in his wigwam. My eyes have seen, and my soul
believes what is true. But my brother has travelled very little of the
path leading to his people."

"I wil