The prisoner, also, astounded out of his despair, raised his head from the grass, and glared around.

The wreaths of smoke curling over the bushes on the hill-side, betrayed the lurking place of the assailants; and savages and prisoner turning together, they all beheld at once the spectacle of two human heads,--or, to speak more correctly, two human caps, for the heads were far below them,--rising in the smoke, and peering over the bushes, as if to mark the result of the volley.

Loud, furious, and exulting were the screams of the Indians, as with the speed of thought, seduced by a stratagem often practised among the wild heroes of the border, they raised and discharged their pieces against the imaginary foes so incautiously exposed to their vengeance.
The caps fell, and with them the rifles that had been employed to raise them; and the voice of Nathan thundered through the glen, as he grasped his tomahawk and sprang from the ditch,--"Now, friend! up with thee axe, and do thee duty!" With these words, the two assailants at once leaped into view, and with a bold hurrah, and bolder hearts, rushed towards the fire, where lay the undischarged rifles of their first victims.

The savages yelled also in reply, and two of them bounded forward to dispute the prize.

The third, staggered into momentary inaction by the suddenness and amazement of the attack, rushed forward but a step; but a whoop of exultation was on his lips, as he raised the rifle which _he_ had not yet discharged, full against the breast of Tiger Nathan.