He leaned and spoke into his friend's ear. He menaced the woods with a gesture. "If they keep on chasing us, by Gawd, they'd better watch out. Can't stand TOO much."

The friend twisted his head and made a calm reply. "If they keep on a-chasin' us they'll drive us all inteh th' river."

The youth cried out savagely at this state- ment. He crouched behind a little tree, with his eyes burning hatefully and his teeth set in a cur- like snarl. The awkward bandage was still about his head, and upon it, over his wound, there was a spot of dry blood. His hair was wondrously tousled, and some straggling, moving locks hung over the cloth of the bandage down toward his forehead. His jacket and shirt were open at the throat, and exposed his young bronzed neck. There could be seen spasmodic gulpings at his throat.

His fingers twined nervously about his rifle. He wished that it was an engine of annihilating power. He felt that he and his companions were being taunted and derided from sincere convic- tions that they were poor and puny. His knowl- edge of his inability to take vengeance for it made his rage into a dark and stormy specter, that pos- sessed him and made him dream of abominable cruelties. The tormentors were flies sucking in- solently at his blood, and he thought that he would have given his life for a revenge of seeing their faces in pitiful plights.