Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/47

 yet another. He heard the crash of a rifle, the thud of a bullet against a tree-trunk ahead of him. Again a rifle roared behind him; the mare staggered and nearly fell. Almayne knew what had happened. A bullet had struck her right hind leg low down and had splintered the bone or cut a tendon. Gamely she struggled on; but Almayne, swinging his leg over her neck, leaped from the saddle, landing lightly as a cat. He struck the ground running.

"Good-bye, little Tlutlu," he cried. Lips tight, eyes blazing, his long rifle gripped in his right hand, he dashed into the forest to the right of the trail.

At his best speed he ran on and on through the woods, already fairly sure that he was safe. He had a good start and was fast on his feet, and from the slope of the land he judged that a creek or river lay ahead of him. Dense belts of cane bordered the foothill streams and in a canebrake a hundred Indians could not find him. He would be able, he thought, to gain the shelter of the canes, for he knew that his assailants were unmounted. A quick glance down the trail behind him just before the mare was struck had identified them instantly—a dozen or more Senecas, warriors of the Northern Iroquois, who had traveled far beyond their own boundaries to raid the Southern trading paths.

These raiders from the North traveled always on foot because they could the more easily lose them-