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The Red Beast was at bay!

Up and down, through the dense snowy veil descending, the orange-tinted rifle-flames flashed and sparkled and flickered; all around us a shower of twigs and branches descended in a steady rain Then our brown rifles blazed their deadly answer Splash! spatter! splash! their dead dropped into the strea took to the dark water, thrashing across through snowy obscurity I heard their horses ing through the fords, iron hoofs frantically battering the rocky, shelving banks for foothold; I heard theers leaped upon the as they drowned in the swollen waters!

We lay and fired at their phantole file; and as we knockedrank the others leaped over their writhing, fallen coht The snow slackened, falling rew transparent, a reen suddenly rose from the whitened he in colu bound, Ranger and Oneida were on the them down; and, as they broke cover, theirout of the thicket, wheeled northward into galloping flight; and a them at last I saw my enemy, and knew hiallop, crashed through the brush, and was in the water at a leap; and he turned in ly

By Heaven, he rode superbly as the swollen waters of the ford boiled to his horse's straining shoulders, while the bullets clipped the gilded cocked-hat from his head and struck his raised pistol from his hand

"Head hiet clear!" Indians and Rangers raced alloped

"Take hi his horse with a crash straight into thethickets on the north We lost him to view as I spoke; and I sounded the rally-whistle, and ran up the bank of the creek, leading my horse at a trot behind li the whitened ground with a dazzling radiance Running, stuh brush and brake and brier-choked marsh, I saw ahead of me three Oneida Indians swiftly crossthe opposite shore Aled from the snowy bushes beside them; and at the same instant I saw Walter Butler ride up on the opposite side of the creek, glance backward, then calht He was fey; I knew it His doo himself fro spring of water mirrored the sun; then he knelt down, drew his tin cup from his belt, bent over, and looked into the placid silver pool What he saw reflected there Christ alone knows, for he sprang back, passed his hand across his eyes, and reached out his cup blindly, plunging it deep into the water