MIKE AND TIGER-TAIL PLAY CHESS. 297 



driven into the wall. His tight buckskin leggings were fringed 

 with blue, his naked chest and arms glistened with sweat and the 

 sunshine, and with the vermilion-coloured painting on his face and 

 breast he resembled an ocelot climbing a tree. He found the 

 ascent easy until he reached the top of the tower, where it curved 

 out to form the little gallery that ran round the lantern. Here he 

 paused for a moment, adjusting his feet and inserting a hand in a 

 crevice of the wall to support him, while he reached out with the 

 other to fix his hold in the ledge, and here he met the bolt of fate 

 from Mike's rifle, that, with its ringing knell, proclaimed to the 

 astonished band that not only was their comrade on the tower 

 death-stricken, but that necessarily the outpost they had left on 

 the island in the night had first fallen before the same avenger. 



Sometimes, when one is hunting squirrels, and has made his 

 shot at some determined nut-cracker in a stately hickory, he will 

 see the wounded animal shiver and drop the unopened nut it held 

 in its teeth, then move on a little and lay flat on the limb, then one 

 by one its feet relaxing their hold, until it slips from the cradling 

 bough, still clinging by one paw, and when that loses its grasp, 

 catching at a lower branch with the other, while on the forest 

 leaves, with a slow patter, the red drops fall until the still wrest- 

 ling animal hurtles from its retreat, crashing through the leaves 

 to the earth beneath, never more to wake the morning with its 

 shrill bark. 



So the Indian on the tower at the crack of the rifle shivered 

 and dropped his hunting-knife from between his teeth, and reluc- 

 tantly quitted his hold and fell to the earth below. His comrades 

 had already fled to cover, and lying there in the sun he clenched 

 the sand, gave a convulsive sob, and lay still for ever. 



An hour passed by when Mike saw from his concealment the 

 five Indians that remained crossing the sound in their boats. They 

 had considered it safest to beat their retreat while they knew 

 precisely where their foe was intrenched. They carried their dead 

 with them, save the body of the one lying by Mike on the islet, 

 and fled in the direction they were taking when the light in the 

 lantern recalled them to complete their revenge. 



The hunter watched their course until they faded into the 



u 



