The face still peered intently downhill.

I lifted a pistol, took careful aim, and fired at the patch of red skin.
A thousand echoes rang through the wood.

The bullet had grazed the tree trunk, and the face was gone.

But whither?
Did a dead man lie behind the trunk, or had a wounded man crawled into cover?
I waited breathlessly for a minute or two, and then went forward, with my second pistol at the cock.
There was nothing behind the tree.

Only a piece of red bark with a bullet hole through it, some greasy horsehair, and a feather.