The forlorn hope had now reached midway of the summit--but not, as their leader had fondly anticipated, without observation from the foe--when the sound of a human voice directly above warned him of his error; and, looking up, he beheld, perched upon a fragment of the cliff, which hung directly over the gorge, the figure of a single man.

For the first time led to anticipate resistance in this quarter, he bade the men prepare for the event as well as they might; and calling out imperatively to the individual, who still maintained his place on the projection of the rock as if in defiance, he bade him throw down his arms and submit.
"Throw down my arms! and for what ?" was the reply.

"I'd like to know by what right you require us to throw down our arms.

It may do in England, or any other barbarous country where the people don't know their rights yet, to make them throw down their arms; but I reckon there's no law for it in these parts, that you can show us, captain." "Pick that insolent fellow off, one of you," was the order; and in an instant a dozen rifles were lifted, but the man was gone.

A hat appearing above the cliff, was bored with several bullets; and the speaker, who laughed heartily at the success of his trick, now resumed his position on the cliff, with the luckless hat perched upon the staff on which it had given them the provocation to fire.