r; but when the change
begins to come, I will strike my tent and go to the great unknown lands
of the west, for I cannot bear the clatter and the strife of men."

Paul was about to reply, when an arrow whizzed through the air, pierced
the sleeve of his coat, scratched his left arm slightly as it passed,
and quivered in a tree behind them.

Leaping up, each member of the party sprang for shelter behind a
neighbouring tree.

At the same moment there arose a terrible cry, as of men rushing to
attack each other. The form of the ground prevented our travellers from
seeing the combatants, though the sound of their strife proved them to
be close at hand. Suddenly Hendrick left the tree behind which he had
taken shelter, and, running towards a precipitous bank or cliff, called
to his companions to follow. They obeyed at once.

"I fear," he said, as Paul ran up alongside of him, "that I know the
meaning of this. Some of the voices sound familiar to me. That arrow
was not, I think, discharged at us. We shall be wanted here. May I
count on you?"

"You may," said Paul. "I cannot doubt that your cause must be a just
one."

"I'm with you!" exclaimed Master Trench, plucking the hatchet from his
son's belt--a weapon that the youngster could well spare, as the
bludgeon and the bow were still left to him.

Hendrick had spoken in quick, sharp tones, for he was evidently much
excited. On reaching the crest of a rising ground he looked cautiously
over it.

"As I thought!" he said; "my wife's relations are attacked by savages
from Labrador. Come, follow me!"

He ran swiftly round the base of the rising ground, not giving his
comrades time even to see the combatants to whom he referred.

Suddenly they came in full sight of perhaps the most terrible sight that
our fallen world can present--two bands of armed men, mad with rage,
engaged in the fiendish work of butchering each other.

In the immediate foreground two powerful Indians were struggling each to
plant a short spear in the other's heart. One, who was shorter than the
other but equally powerful, was making a desperate effort to wrench his
right hand from his foe's grasp, and another foe was on the point of
stabbing the short man in the back, when the white men appeared on the
scene. Paul, the captain, and Oliver, although ready with arrow and
bolt hesitated, for they knew not which to regard as foes, and which as
friends. No such difficulty, however, interfere