"It may be those fellows have never heard the crack of a gun.

The sound and sudden death might terrorize them." I took careful aim above the wall, resting my long rifle-barrel in a groove between the stones, and fired.

Ever since, it has seemed to me that God, for some mysterious purpose of His own, deflected the speeding ball, for never before or since did I miss such aim.

Yet miss I did, for while the old chief leaped wildly backward, his cheek fanned by the bullet, it was the savage he conversed with who sprang high into air, coming down dead.

Nor did a single warrior make a movement to flee.