length, and glancing with half-spent
force to inflict a slight flesh wound on his leg!

He was giddy and a little frightened. And he had seen nobody hit, nor
nothin'. It was all a humbug! Seth had disappeared. So had the others.
There was a faint sound of voices and something like a group in the
distance--that was all. It was getting dark, too, and his leg was still
asleep, but warm and wet. He would get down. This was very difficult,
for his leg would not wake up, and but for the occasional support he got
by striking his hatchet in the tree he would have fallen in descending.
When he reached the ground his leg began to pain, and looking down he
saw that his stocking and shoe were soaked with blood.

His small and dirty handkerchief, a hard wad in his pocket, was
insufficient to staunch the flow. With a vague recollection of a certain
poultice applied to a boil on his father's neck, he collected a quantity
of soft moss and dried yerba buena leaves, and with the aid of his check
apron and of one of his torn suspenders tightly wound round the whole
mass, achieved a bandage of such elephantine proportions that he could
scarcely move with it. In fact, like most imaginative children, he
became slightly terrified at his own alarming precautions. Nevertheless,
although a word or an outcry from him would have at that moment brought
the distant group to his assistance, a certain respect to himself and
his brother kept him from uttering even a whimper of weakness.

Yet he found refuge, oddly enough, in a suppressed but bitter
denunciation of the other boys of his acquaintance. What was Cal.
Harrison doing, while he, Johnny, was alone in the woods, wounded in a
grown-up duel--for nothing would convince this doughty infant that
he had not been an active participant? Where was Jimmy Snyder that he
didn't come to his assistance with the other fellers? Cowards all; they
were afraid. Ho, ho! And he, Johnny, wasn't afraid! ho--he didn't mind
it! Nevertheless he had to repeat the phrase two or three times until,
after repeated struggles to move forward through the brush, he at last
sank down exhausted. By this time the distant group had slowly moved
away, carrying something between them, and leaving Johnny alone in the
fast coming darkness. Yet even this desertion did not affect him as
strongly as his implicit belief in the cowardly treachery of his old
associates.

It grew darker and darker, until the open theatre of the late confli