All this however occurred nearly two months after the time of which I write, and it is introduced here merely by way of explaining the things which happened to Sam on the morning of the rash resumption of his journey.
This man Weatherford, the fiercest enemy the whites had, with a party of about twenty-five Indians, bivouacked, the night before, in the edge of the woods, and when Sam mounted his horse that morning the Indians were lying asleep immediately in his path as he rode blindly out of the thicket.

The first intimation he had of their presence was a grunt from a big savage who lay almost under his horse's feet.

Coming to himself in an instant, Sam took in the whole situation at a glance, and with the rapidity and precision which people who are accustomed to the dangers and difficulties of frontier life always acquire, he mentally weighed all the facts bearing upon the question of what to do, and decided.

He saw before him the savages, rising from the ground at sight of him.

He saw their horses browsing at some little distance from them.