A tall warrior, hatchet in hand, with a dozen more at his back, rushed upon the Virginian.  But before he could strike, there came leaping with astonishing bounds over the bodies of the wounded and dying, and into the circle of fire, a figure that might have filled a better and braver warrior with dread.  It was the medicine-man, and former captive, the Indian habiliments and paint still on his body and visage, though both were flecked and begrimed with blood.  In his left hand was a bundle of scalps, the same he had taken from the tent of Wenonga; the grizzled scalp-lock of the chief, known by the vulture-feathers, beak, and talons, still attached to it, was hanging to his girdle; while the steel battle-axe, so often wielded by Wenonga, was gleaming aloft in his right hand.

The savage recoiled, and with loud yells of “The Jibbenainosay! the Jibbenainosay!” turned to fly, while even those behind him staggered back at the apparition of the destroyer, thus tangibly presented to their eyes; nor was their awe lessened, when the supposed fiend, taking one step after the retreating leader of the gang, drove the fatal hatchet into his brain, with as lusty a whoop of victory as ever came from the lungs of a warrior.  At the same moment he was hidden from their eyes by a dozen horsemen that came rushing up, with tremendous huzzas, some darting against the band, while others sprung from their horses to liberate the prisoners.  But this duty had been already rendered, at least in the case of Captain Forrester.  The axe of Wenonga, dripping with blood to the hilt, divided the rope at a single blow, and then Roland’s fingers were crushed in the grasp of his preserver, as the latter exclaimed, with a strange, half-frantic chuckle of triumph and delight,—­

“Thee sees, friend!  Thee thought I had deserted thee?  Truly, truly, thee was mistaken!”

“Hurrah for old Tiger Nathan!  I’ll never say Q to a quaker agin as long as I live!” exclaimed another voice, broken, feeble, and vainly aiming to raise a huzza; and the speaker, seizing Nathan with one hand, while the other grasped tremulously at Captain Forrester’s, displayed to the latter’s eyes the visage of Tom Bruce the younger, pale, sickly, emaciated, his once gigantic proportions wasted away, and his whole appearance indicating anything but fitness for a field of battle.

“Strannger!” cried the youth, pressing the soldier’s hand with what strength he could, and laughing faintly, “we’ve done the handsome thing by you, me and dad, thar’s no denying!  But we went your security agin all sorts of danngers in our beat; and thar’s just the occasion.  But h’yar’s dad to speak for himself:  as for me, I rather think breath’s too short for wasting.”