Chapter XI. The Forest Spell

by Joseph A. Altsheler

　　When the adventurers returned, the rifle and ax were laid asideat Wareville, for the moment, because the supreme test wascoming. The soil was now to respond to its trial, or to fail.This was the vital question to Wareville. The game, in the yearsto come, must disappear, the forest would be cut down, but thequalities of the earth would remain; if it produced well, itwould form the basis of a nation, if not, it would be better tolet all the work of the last year go and seek another homeelsewhere.

　　But the settlers had little doubt. All their lives had beenspent close to the soil, and they were not to be deceived, whenthey came over the mountains in search of a land richer than anythat they had tilled before. They had seen its blackness, and,plowing down with the spade, they had tested its depth. Theyknew that for ages and ages leaf and bough, falling upon it, haddecayed there and increased its fertility, and so they awaitedthe test with confidence.

　　The green young shoots of the wheat, sown before the winter, werethe first to appear, and everyone in Wareville old enough to knowthe importance of such a manifestation went forth to examinethem. Mr. Ware, Mr. Upton and Mr. Pennypacker held solemnconclave, and the final verdict was given by the schoolmaster, asbecame a man who might not be so strenuous in practice as theothers, but who nevertheless was more nearly a master of theory.

　　"The stalks are at least a third heavier than those in Marylandor Virginia at the same age," he said, "and we can fairly inferfrom it that the grain will show the same proportion of increase.I take a third as a most conservative estimate; it is reallynearer a half. Wareville can, with reason, count upontwenty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, and it is likely to gohigher."

　　It was then no undue sense of elation that Wareville felt, and itwas shared by Henry and Paul, and even young Lucy Upton.

　　"It will be a rich country some day when I'm an old, old woman,"she said to Henry.

　　"It's a rich country now," replied he proudly, "and it will be along, long time before you are an old woman."

　　They began now to plow the ground cleared the autumn before -"new ground" they called it - for the spring planting of maize.This, often termed "Indian corn" but more generally known by thesimple name corn, was to be their chief crop, and the labor ofpreparation, in which Henry had his full share, was not light.Their plows were rude, made by themselves, and finished with asingle iron point, and the ground, which had supported the forestso lately, was full of roots and stumps. So the passage of theplow back and forth was a trial to both the muscles and thespirit. Henry's body became sore from head to foot, and by andby, as the spring advanced and the sun grew hotter, he lookedlongingly at the shade of the forest which yet lay so near, andthought of the deep, cool pools and the silver fish leaping up,until their scales shone like gold in the sunshine, and of thestags with mighty antlers coming down to drink. He was sorry forthe moment that he was so large and strong and was so useful withplow and hoe. Then he might be more readily excused and couldtake his rifle and seek the depths of the forest, whereeverything grew by nature's aid alone, and man need not work,unless the spirit moved him to do so.

　　They planted the space close around the fort in gardens and hereafter the ground was broken up or plowed, the women and thegirls, all tall and strong, did the work.

　　The summer was splendid in its promise and prodigal in itsfavors. The rains fell just right, and all that the pioneersplanted came up in abundance. The soil, so kind to the wheat,was not less so to the corn and the gardens. Henry surveyed withpride the field of maize cultivated by himself, in which thestalks were now almost a foot high, looking in the distance likea delicate green veil spread over the earth. His satisfactionwas shared by all in Wareville because after this fulfillment ofthe earth's promises, they looked forward to continued seasons ofplenty.

　　When the heavy work of planting and cultivating was over andthere was to be a season of waiting for the harvest, Henry wenton the great expedition to the Mississippi.

　　In the party were Ross, Shif'less Sol, the schoolmaster, Henryand Paul. Wareville had no white neighbor near and all thesettlements lay to the north or east. Beyond them, across theOhio, was the formidable cloud of Indian tribes, the terror ofwhich always overhung the settlers. West of them was a vastwaste of forest spreading away far beyond the Mississippi, and,so it was supposed, inhabited only by wild animals. It wasthought well to verify this supposition and therefore theexploring expedition set out.

　　Each member of the party carried a rifle, hunting knife andammunition, and in addition they led three pack horses bearingmore ammunition, their meal, jerked venison and buffalo meat.This little army expected to live upon the country, but it tookthe food as a precaution.

　　They started early of a late but bright summer morning, and Henryfound all his old love of the wilderness returning. Now it wouldbe gratified to the full, as they should be gone perhaps twomonths and would pass through regions wholly unknown. Moreoverhe had worked hard for a long time and he felt that his holidaywas fully earned; hence there was no flaw in his hopes.

　　It required but a few minutes to pass through the cleared ground,the new fields, and reach the forest and as they looked back theysaw what a slight impression they had yet made on the wilderness.Wareville was but a bit of human life, nothing more than an isletof civilization in a sea of forest.

　　Five minutes more of walking among the trees, and then bothWareville and the newly opened country around it were shut out.They saw only the spire of smoke that had been a beacon once toHenry and Paul, rising high up, until it trailed off to the westwith the wind, where it lay like a whiplash across the sky.This, too, was soon lost as they traveled deeper into the forest,and then they were alone in the wilderness, but without fear.

　　"When we were able to live here without arms or ammunition it'snot likely that we'll suffer, now is it?" said Paul to Henry.

　　"Suffer!" exclaimed Henry. "It's a journey that I couldn't behired to miss."

　　"It ought to be enjoyable," said Mr. Pennypacker; "that is, ifour relatives don't find it necessary to send into the Northwest,and try to buy back our scalps from the Indian tribes."

　　But the schoolmaster was not serious. He had little fear ofIndians in the western part of Kentucky, where they seldomranged, but he thought it wise to put a slight restraint upon theexuberance of youth.

　　They camped that night about fifteen miles from Wareville underthe shadow of a great, overhanging rock, where they cooked somesquirrels that the shiftless one shot in a tall tree. Theschoolmaster upon this occasion constituted himself cook.

　　"There is a popular belief," he said when he asserted his place,"that a man of books is of no practical use in the world. Ihereby intend to give a living demonstration to the contrary."

　　Ross built the fire, and while the schoolmaster set himself tohis task, Henry and Paul took their fish hooks and lines and wentdown to the creek that flowed near. It was so easy to catchperch and other fish that there was no sport in it, and as soonas they had enough for supper and breakfast they went back to thefire where the tempting odors that arose indicated the truth ofthe schoolmaster's assertion. The squirrels were done to a turn,and no doubt of his ability remained.

　　Supper over, they made themselves beds of boughs under the shadowof the rock, while the horses were tethered near. They sank intodreamless sleep, and it was the schoolmaster who awakened Pauland Henry the next morning.

　　They entered that day a forest of extraordinary grandeur, almostclear of undergrowth and with illimitable rows of mighty oak andbeech trees. As they passed through, it was like walking underthe lofty roof of an immense cathedral. The large masses offoliage met overhead and shut out the sun, making the spacebeneath dim and shadowy, and sometimes it seemed to the explorersthat an echo of their own footsteps came back to them.

　　Henry noted the trees, particularly the beeches which here growto finer proportions than anywhere else in the world, and said hewas glad that he did not have to cut them down and clear theground, for the use of the plow.

　　After they passed out of this great forest they entered thewidest stretch of open country they had yet seen in Kentucky,though here and there they came upon patches of bushes.

　　"I think this must have been burned off by successive forestfires," said Ross. "Maybe hunting parties of Indians put thetorch to it in order to drive the game."

　　Certainly these prairies now contained an abundance of animallife. The grass was fresh, green and thick everywhere, and froma hill the explorers saw buffalo, elk, and common deer grazing orbrowsing on the bushes.

　　As the game was so abundant Paul, the least skillful of the partyin such matters, was sent forth that evening to kill a deer andthis he triumphantly accomplished to his own great satisfaction.They again slept in peace, now under the low-hanging boughs of anoak, and continued the next day to the west. Thus they went onfor days.

　　It was an easy journey, except when they came to rivers, some ofwhich were too deep for fording, but Ross had made provision forthem. Perched upon one of the horses was a skin canoe, that is,one made of stout buffalo hide to be held in shape by a slightframework of wood on the inside, such as they could make at anytime. Two or three trips in this would carry themselves and alltheir equipment over the stream while the horses swam behind.

　　They soon found it necessary to put their improvised canoe to useas they came to a great river flowing in a deep channel. Wildducks flew about its banks or swam on the dark-blue current thatflowed quietly to the north. This was the Cumberland, thoughnameless then to the travelers, and its crossing was a delicateoperation as any incautious movement might tip over the skincanoe, and, while they were all good swimmers, the loss of theirprecious ammunition could not be taken as anything but a terriblemisfortune.

　　Traveling on to the west they came to another and still mightierriver, called by the Indians, so Ross said, the Tennessee, whichmeans in their language the Great Spoon, so named because theriver bent in curves like a spoon. This river looked even wilderand more picturesque than the Cumberland, and Henry, as he gazedup its stream, wondered if the white man would ever know all thestrange regions through which it flowed. Vast swarms of wildfowl, as at the Cumberland, floated upon its waters or flew nearand showed but little alarm as they passed. When they wishedfood it was merely to go a little distance and take it as onewalks to a cupboard for a certain dish.

　　Now, the aspect of the country began to change. The hills sank.The streams ceased to sparkle and dash helter-skelter over thestones; instead they flowed with a deep sluggish current andalways to the west. In some the water was so nearly still thatthey might be called lagoons. Marshes spread out for greatdistances, and they were thronged with millions of wild fowl.The air grew heavier, hotter and damper.

　　"We must be approaching the Mississippi," said Henry, who wasquick to draw an inference from these new conditions.

　　"It can't be very far," replied Ross, "because we are in lowcountry now, and when we get into the lowest the Mississippi willbe there."

　　All were eager for a sight of the great river. Its name was fullof magic for those who came first into the wilderness ofKentucky. It seemed to them the limits of the inhabitable world.Beyond stretched vague and shadowy regions, into which huntersand trappers might penetrate, but where no one yet dreamed ofbuilding a home. So it was with some awe that they would standupon the shores of this boundary, this mighty stream that dividedthe real from the unreal.

　　But traveling was now slow. There were so many deep creeks andlagoons to cross, and so many marshes to pass around that theycould not make many miles in a day. They camped for a while onthe highest hill that they could find and fished and hunted.While here they built themselves a thatch shelter, acting onRoss's advice, and they were very glad that they did so, as atremendous rain fell a few days after it was finished, delugingthe country and swelling all the creeks and lagoons. So theyconcluded to stay until the earth returned to comparative drynessagain in the sunshine, and meanwhile their horses, which did notstand the journey as well as their masters, could recuperate.

　　Two days after they resumed the journey, they stood on the lowbanks of the Mississippi and looked at its vast yellow currentflowing in a mile-wide channel, and bearing upon its muddy bosom,bushes and trees, torn from slopes thousands of miles away. Itwas not beautiful, it was not even picturesque, but its size, itsloneliness and its desolation gave it a somber grandeur, whichall the travelers felt. It was the same river that had receivedDe Soto's body many generations before, and it was still amystery.

　　"We know where it goes to, for the sea receives them all," saidMr. Pennypacker, "but no man knows whence it comes."

　　"And it would take a good long trip to find out," said Sol.

　　"A trip that we haven't time to take," returned the schoolmaster.

　　Henry felt a desire to make that journey, to follow the greatstream, month after month, until he traced it to the lastfountain and uncovered its secret. The power that grips theexplorer, that draws him on through danger, known and unknown,held him as he gazed.

　　They followed the banks of the stream at a slow pace to thenorth, sweltering in the heat which seemed to come to a focushere at the confluence of great waters, until at last theyreached a wide extent of low country overgrown with bushes andcut with a broad yellow band coming down from the northeast.

　　"The Ohio!" said Ross.

　　And so it was; it was here that the stream called by the Indians"The Beautiful River"-though not deserving the name at thisplace-lost itself in the Mississippi and at the junction itseemed full as mighty a river as the great Father of Watershimself.

　　They did not stay long at the meeting of the two rivers, fearingthe miasma of the, marshy soil, but retreated to the hills wherethey went into camp again. Yet Ross, and Henry, and Sol crossedboth the Ohio and the Mississippi in the frail canoe for the sakeof saying that they had been on the farther shores. The three,leaving Paul and the schoolmaster to guard the camp, evenpenetrated to a considerable distance in the prairie countrybeyond the Ohio. Here Henry saw for the first time a buffaloherd of size. Buffaloes were common enough in Kentucky, but thecountry being mostly wooded they roamed there in small bands.North of the Ohio he now beheld these huge shaggy animals inthousands and he narrowly escaped being trampled to death by aherd which, frightened by a pack of wolves, rushed down upon himlike a storm. It was Ross who saved him by shooting the leadingbull, thus compelling them to divide when they came to his body,by which action they left a clear space where he and Henry stood.After that Henry, as became one of fast-ripening experience andjudgment, grew more cautious.

　　All the party were in keen enjoyment of the great journey, andfelt in their veins the thrill of the wilderness. Paul'sstudious face took on the brown tan of autumn, and even theschoolmaster, a man of years who liked the ways of civilization,saw only the pleasures of the forest and closed his eyes to itshardships. But there was none who was caught so deeply in thespell of the wilderness as Henry, not even Ross nor the shiftlessone. There was something in the spirit of the boy that respondedto the call of the winds through the deep woods, a harking backto the man primeval, a love for nature and silence.

　　The forest hid many things from the schoolmaster, but he knew thehearts of men, and he could read their thoughts in their eyes,and he was the first to notice the change in Henry or rather lessa change than a deepening and strengthening of a nature that hadnot found until now its true medium. The boy did not like tohear them speak of the return, he loved his people and he wouldserve them always as best he could, but they were prosperous andhappy back there in Wareville and did not need him; now theforest beckoned to him, and, speaking to him in a hundred voices,bade him stay. When he roamed the woods, their majesty and leafysilence appealed to all his senses. The two vast still riversthrew over him the spell of mystery, and the secret of thegreater one, its hidden origin, tantalized him. Often he gazednorthward along its yellow current and wondered if he could notpierce that secret. Dimly in his mind, formed a plan to followthe yellow stream to its source some day, and again he thrilledwith the thought of great adventures and mighty wanderings, wheremen of his race had never gone before.

　　Knowledge, too, came to him with an ease and swiftness thatfilled with surprise experienced foresters like Ross and Sol.The woods seemed to unfold their secrets to him. He learned thenature of all the herbs, those that might be useful to man andthose that might be harmful, he was already as skillful with acanoe as either the guide or the shiftless one, he could follow atrail like an Indian, and the habits of the wild animals heobserved with a minute and remembering eye. All the lore ofthose faraway primeval ancestors suddenly reappears in him at thevoice of the woods, and was ready for his use.

　　"It will not be long until Henry is a man," said Ross one eveningas they sat before their camp fire and saw the boy approaching, adeer that he had killed home upon his shoulders.

　　"He is a man now," said the schoolmaster with gravity andemphasis as he looked attentively at the figure of the youthcarrying the deer. No one ever before had given him such animpression of strength and physical alertness. He seemed to,have grown, to have expanded visibly since their departure fromWareville. The muscles of his arm stood up under theclose-fitting deerskin tunic, and the length of limb and breadthof shoulder in the boy indicated a coming man of giant mold.

　　"What a hunter and warrior he will make!" said Ross.

　　"A future leader of wilderness men," said Mr. Pennypacker softly,"but there is wild blood in those veins; he will have to behandled well."

　　Henry threw down the deer and greeted them with cheerful wordsthat came spontaneously from a joyful soul. They had built theirfire, not a large one, in an oak opening and all around the treesrose like a mighty circular wall. The red shadows of a sun thathad just set lingered on the western edge of the forest, but inthe east all was black. Out of this vastness came the rustlingsound of the wind as it moved among the autumn leaves. In theopening was a core of ruddy light and the living forms of men,but it was only a tiny spot in the immeasurable wilderness.The schoolmaster and he alone felt their littleness. The autumnnight was crisp, and from his seat on a log he held out hisfingers to the warm blaze. Now and then a yellow or red leafcaught in the light wind drifted to his feet and he gazed up halfin fear at the great encircling wall of blackness. Then heuttered silent thanks that he was with such trusty men as theguide and the shiftless one.

　　The effect upon Henry was not the same. He had become silentwhile the others talked, and he half reclined against a tree,looking at the sky that showed a dim and shadowy disk through theopening. But there was nothing of fear in his mind. A delicioussense of peace and satisfaction crept over him. All the voicesof the night seemed familiar and good. A lizard slipped throughthe grass and the eye and ear of Henry alone noticed it; neitherthe guide nor the shiftless one had seen or heard its passage.He measured the disk of the heavens with his glance and foretoldunerringly whether it would be clear or cloudy on the morrow, andwhen something rustled in the woods, he knew, without looking,that it was a hare frightened by the blaze fleeing from itscovert. A tiny brook trickled at the far edge of the fire's rim,and he could tell by the color of the waters through what kind ofsoil it had come.

　　Paul sat down near him, and began to talk of home. Henry smiledupon him indulgently; his old relation of protector to theyounger boy had grown stronger during this trip; in the forest hewas his comrade's superior by far, and Paul willingly admittedit; in such matters he sought no rivalry with his friend.

　　"I wonder what they are doing way down there?" said Paul, wavinghis hand toward the southeast. "Just think of it, Henry! Theyare only one little spot in the wilderness, and we are only,another little spot way up here! In all the hundreds of milesbetween, there may not be another white face!"

　　"It is likely true, but what of it?" replied Henry. "The biggerthe wilderness the more room in it for us to roam in. I wouldrather have great forests than great towns."

　　He turned lazily and luxuriously on his side, and, gazing intothe red coals, began to see there visions of other forests andvast plains, with himself wandering on among the trees and overthe swells. His comrades said nothing more because it wascomfortable in their little camp, and the peace of the wilds wasover them all. The night was cold, but the circling wall oftrees sheltered the opening, and the fire in the center radiateda grateful heat in which they basked. The scholar, Mr.Pennypacker, rested his face upon his hands, and he, too, wasdreaming as he stared into the blaze. Paul, his blanket wrappedaround him and his head pillowed upon soft boughs, was asleepalready. Ross and Sol dozed.

　　But Henry neither slept nor wished to do so. His gaze shiftedfrom the red coals to the silver disk of the sky. The worldseemed to him very beautiful and very intimate. Theseillimitable expanses of forest conveyed to him no sense of eitherawe or fear. He was at home. He had become for the time a beingof the night, piercing the darkness with the eyes of a wildcreature, and hearkening to the familiar voices around him thatspoke to him and to him alone. Never was sleep farther from him.The shifting firelight in its flickering play fell upon his faceand revealed it in all its clear young boyish strength, the firmneck, the masterful chin, the calm, resolute eyes set wide apart,the lean big-boned fingers, lying motionless across his knees.Mr. Pennypacker began to nod, then he, too, wrapped himself inhis blanket, lay back and soon fell fast asleep; in a few minutesSol followed him to the land of real dreams, and after a briefinterval Ross, too, yielded. Henry alone was awake, drinkingdeep of the night and its lonely joy.

　　The silver disk of the sky turned into gray under a cloud, thedarkness swept up deeper and thicker, the light of the firewaned, but the boy still leaned against the log, and upon hissensitive mind every change of the wilderness was registered asupon the delicate surface of a plate. He glanced at his sleepingcomrades and smiled. The smile was the index to an unconsciousfeeling of superiority. Ross and Sol were two or three times hisage, but they slept while he watched, and not Ross himself in allhis years in the wilderness had learned many things that came tohim by intuition.

　　Hours passed and the boy was yet awake. New feelings, vague andundetermined came into his mind, but through them all went thefeeling of mastery. He, though a boy, was in many respects thechief, and while he need not assert his leadership yet a while,he could, never doubt its possession.

　　The light died far down and only a few smoldering coals wereleft. The blackness of the night, coming ever closer and closer,hovered over his companions and hid their faces from him. Thegreat trunks of the trees grew shadowy and dim. Out of thedarkness came a sound slight but not in harmony with the ordinarynoises of the forest. His acute senses, the old inheritedprimitive instinct, noticed at once the jarring note. He movedever so little but an extraordinary change came over his face.The idle look of luxury and basking warmth passed away and theeyes became alert, watchful, defiant. Every feature, everymuscle was drawn, as if he were at the utmost tension. Almostunconsciously his figure sank down farther against the log, untilit blended perfectly with the bark and the fallen leaves below.Only an eye of preternatural keenness could have separated theoutline of the boy from the general scene.

　　For five minutes he lay and moved not a particle. Then thediscordant note came again among the familiar sounds of theforest and he glanced at his comrades. They slept peacefully.His lip curled slightly, not with contempt but with thatunconscious feeling of superiority; they would not have noticed,even had they been awake.

　　His hands moved forward and grasped his rifle. Then he began toslip away from the opening and into the forest, not by walkingnor altogether by crawling, but by a curious, noiseless, glidingmotion, almost like that of a serpent. Always he clung to theshadows where his shifting body still blended with the dark, andas he advanced other primitive instincts blazed up in him. Hewas a hunter pursuing for the first time the highest and mostdangerous game of all game and the thrill through his veins wasso keen that he shivered slightly. His chin was projected, andhis eyes were two red spots in the night. All the while hiscomrades by the fire, even the trained foresters, slumbered inpeace, no warning whatever coming to their heavy heads.

　　The boy reached the wall of the woods, and now his form wascompletely swallowed up in the blackness there. He lay a whilein the bushes, motionless, all his senses alert, and for thethird time the jarring note came to his ears. The maker of itwas on his right, and, as he judged, perhaps a couple of hundredyards away. He would proceed at once to that point. It is truthto say that no thought of danger entered his mind; the thrills ofthe present and its chances absorbed him. It seemed natural thathe should do this thing, he was merely resuming an old labor,discontinued for a time.

　　He raised his head slightly, but even his keen eyes could seenothing in the forest save trunks and branches, ghostly andshapeless, and the regular rustle of the wind was not broken nowby the jarring note. But the darkness heavy and ominous, waspermeated with the signs of things about to happen, and heavywith danger, a danger, however, that brought no fear to Henry forhimself, only for others. A faint sighing note as of a distantbird came on the wind, and pausing, he listened intently. Heknew that it was not a bird, that sound was made by human lips,and once more a light shiver passed over his frame; it was asignal, concerning his comrades and himself, and he would turnaside the danger from those old friends of his who slept by thefire, in peace and unknowing.

　　He resumed his cautious passage through the undergrowth, and, theinherited instinct blossoming so suddenly into full flower, wasstill his guide. Not a sound marked his advance, the forest fellsilently behind him, and he went on with unerring knowledge tothe spot from which the discordant sounds had come.

　　He approached another opening among the trees, like unto that inwhich his comrades slept, and now, lying close in theundergrowth, he looked for the first time upon the sight which sooften boded ill to his kind. The warriors were in a group, somesitting others standing, and though there was no fire and themoonlight was slight he could mark the primitive brutality oftheir features, the nature of the animal that fought at all timesfor life showing in their eyes. They were hard, harsh andrepellent in every aspect, but the boy felt for a moment asingular attraction, there was even a distant feeling of kinshipas if he, too, could live this life and had lived it. But thefeeling quickly passed, and in its place came the thought of hiscomrades whom he must save.

　　The older of the warriors talked in a low voice, saying unknownwords in a harsh, guttural tongue, and Henry could guess only attheir meaning. But they seemed to be awaiting a signal andpresently the low thrilling note was heard again. Then thewarriors turned as if this were the command to do so, and camedirectly toward the boy who lay in the darkest shadows of theundergrowth.

　　Henry was surprised and startled but only for a moment, then theprimeval instinct came to his aid and swiftly he sank away in thebushes in front of them, as before, no sound marking his passage.He thought rapidly and in all his thoughts there was none ofhimself but as the savior of the little party. It seemed to cometo him naturally that he should be the protector and champion.When he had gone about fifty yards he uttered a shout, long,swelling and full of warning. Then he turned to his right andcrashed through the undergrowth, purposely making a noise thatthe pursuing warriors could not fail to hear. Ross and theothers, he knew, would be aroused instantly by his cry and wouldtake measures of safety. Now the savages would be likely tofollow him alone, and he noted by the sounds that they had turnedaside to do so.

　　At this moment Henry Ware felt nothing but exultation that he, aboy, should prove himself a match for all the cunning of theforest-bred, and he thought not at all of the pursuit that cameso fiercely behind him.

　　He ran swiftly and now directly more than a mile from the camp ofhis friends. Then the inherited instinct that had served him sowell failed; it could not warn him of the deep little river thatlay straight across his path flowing toward the Mississippi. Hecame out upon its banks and was ready to drop down in its waters,but he saw that before he could reach the farther shore he wouldbe a target for his pursuers. He hesitated and was about to turnat a sharp angle, but the warriors emerged from the forest. Itwas then too late.

　　The savages uttered a shout of triumph, the long, ferocious,whining note, so terrible in its intensity and meaning, andHenry, raising his rifle, fired at a painted breast. The nextmoment they were hurled upon him in a brown mass. He felt astunning blow upon the head, sparks flew before his eyes, and theworld reeled away into darkness.