A DESPERATE CONFLICT.
Old Tumult and Town. recoiled before the visionary blow that the
sudden and undreamed-of appearance of the four savages produced upon
them. But, it was only for a moment that their presence of mind
seemed to desert them.
Each of the savages clutched a tomahawk in his hand, and our friends
at once saw the advantage of the foe in weapons as well as number.
Rollo did not relinquish his post at the tiller, but, for some
reason, headed the boat, at once, directly down the stream.
Town., as he mechanically glanced from one to the other of his
friends, noticed the saber dangling at the ranger’s side, and
foreseeing its superiority in a hand-to-hand conflict, reached
forward and snatched it from the scabbard.
Then he made a quick spring toward a savage, and, with a desperate
lunge, drove the slender blade to the heart of the foe.
Up to this instant the savages stood facing the whites, without
making a single demonstration. It was quite evident that the
cunning demons had expected their sudden and unexpected presence to
completely terrify the whites to a bloodless submission. In this,
however, they were sorely surprised, for, at the same instant that
Town. ran one of them through with Rollo’s saber, Old Tumult dropped
his rifle and dealt the second one a blow with his huge fist, that
sent him whirling overboard into the river. Then, with a roar equal
to that of a maddened lion, he leaped at the third savage, while
Town. engaged the fourth.
The savage with whom Old Tumult grappled hand to hand, was the
scout’s equal in every respect. If there was any difference in
weight, it was in favor of the deep, wide-chested Arapaho. In so
close a grapple, the savage was compelled to drop his tomahawk, and
then, in endeavoring to draw his knife, it slipped from his fingers
and fell to the deck.
Thus deprived of all the weapons save those that nature gave them,
the two giant enemies “clinched.”
The contest at once became desperate. It was a battle of life and
death.
Town. Farnesworth, brave as a lion and quick as a flash, soon gained
the advantage over his foe and ran him through with the saber. As
he rolled dead at his feet, the young man turned to assist the old
scout, but at that instant the two giant combatants, locked in each
other’s embrace, staggered backward and rolled through the hatchway
into the boat’s hold.
“My God!” exclaimed Town., rushing to the opening and looking down.
But he saw nothing of the combatants. Back in the hold, two feet
from the hatchway, it was dark as midnight. Besides, to render the
situation more critical, there was several inches of water in the
hold.
Town. started up--his brain burning with wild excitement. The death
of his friend seemed inevitable.
He turned inquiringly toward Rollo, who, as yet, had never left the
tiller. What must have been his surprise and consternation to see
the ranger stoop and assist on board the savage that Old Tumult had
knocked overboard at the beginning of the conflict.
“Rollo! Rollo!” cried Town., “what means this?” and, springing
forward, he severed the head of the savage almost from the body, with
a single sweep of the ranger’s saber.
“Heavens, Farnesworth! I must be crazy--helping the red demon on the
boat to slay me,” he cried; “’tis well you came; I was so excited
that I did not know what I was doing.”
There was a strange light in the ranger’s eyes, and a strange
intonation in his voice.
Town. regarded him for a moment with suspicion, and he had it in his
mind to accuse him of being a traitor, when his thoughts were drawn
away by the desperate struggling going on in the hold below.
Town. would have rushed down to assist his old friend, had he
not been afraid of assisting the wrong one, in the darkness that
prevailed therein. He could do nothing but wait and listen, and hope
for the best. He could hear them rolling and struggling in the water;
he could hear their heavy, labored breathing, and the dull thud and
crash of their fists--even feel the vibratory shock of each blow, and
the dull thumping of their bodies against the under side of the deck.
Now and then all would become quiet and still, as though no life was
there below.
Town. felt a chill of terror creep over him, as he thought that the
savage may have slain his friend, and was then creeping with the
silence of a shadow toward the hatchway, to leap out and murder
him. He was relieved of these fears, however, when the struggling,
pounding and groaning would begin again with renewed vigor.
The dipping of the canoe showed that the combatants were first upon
one side and then the other. A hollow moan now and then came from the
dark pit, followed by a gurgling shriek or strangling cry.
To Town. it sounded like the struggling of two demons away down in
the bowels of the earth.
For fully half an hour the struggling continued, then all became
hushed in a death-like silence--the conflict had ended.
Town. and Rollo held their breath in anxious suspense, and listened.
But all was silent as the grave below.
“My God, Town.! I fear our friend is dead!” cried Rollo.
“If one is dead, both are,” replied Town.
“Perhaps it would be well for us to look, Town.”
Town. went to the opening and gazed down into the hold. But he saw
nothing. At the further end of the boat, where the combatants were
last heard, it was black as night. He listened again, but heard
nothing, he then called the name of his friend--repeated the call,
but still there was no response.
He started up with an expression of deep sadness upon his face.
“They have slain each other, Rollo,” he cried.
Rollo uttered an exclamation of sorrow, as he bent upon the tiller.
“What will we do with the scout’s body?” he finally asked.
“We must remove it from the hold and give it a Christian burial. The
savage’s carcass we will bury in the river.”
“Hist!--ha-rk!”
It was Rollo who uttered the injunction of silence, in a tone
scarcely above a whisper.
“What is it?” queried Town.
“Didn’t you hear a movement below?”
“In the hold?”
“Yes.”
“Ah--_then_ I did--_one of them is not dead_!”
The young settler took up one of the fallen savages’ tomahawks, and
advanced softly toward the hatchway, saying to Rollo in a whisper:
“It is the savage that lives, else Old Tumult would have answered me.
The red demon is waiting for a chance to spring out and murder me. I
will watch for him here.”
“It may not be,” said Rollo.
“Time will soon tell.”
The two became silent, and listened and watched. An awful anxiety
came upon them. One of the combatants _was_ alive. They could hear
him dragging himself through the water toward the opening.
My readers can better imagine the awful suspense of the two young men
than I can describe it. A moment seemed an hour. They were sure they
could hear their own hearts beating and feel the hot blood leaping
through their veins. Their eyes, almost starting from their sockets,
became fixed upon the opening.
Suddenly a shadow appeared within it. Something arose in the young
men’s throats that seemed to choke them.
Slowly, quite slowly, the shadow was followed by a tuft of dark hair,
the shaven skull, the low, dark brow, the glaring eyes, the painted,
lacerated face of _the savage giant_!