sill of the window the better to raise himself to its level. That sight tempted her, in spite of her better sense, to the very precipitation she had desired to avoid. In the moment that she saw the hand of the red man upon the sill the hatchet descended, under an impulse scarcely her own. She struck too quickly. The blow was given with all her force and would certainly have separated the hand from the arm had it taken effect. But the quick eye of the Indian caught a glimpse of her movement at the very moment in which it was made, and the hand was withdrawn before the hatchet descended. The steel sank deep into the soft wood—so deeply that she could not disengage it. To try at this object would have exposed her at once to his weapon, and, leaving it where it stuck, she sank back again into shadow.
What now was she to do? To stay where she was would be of little avail, but to cry out to those below, and seek to fly, was equally unproductive of good, besides warning the enemy of the defenselessness of their condition and thus inviting a renewal of the attack. The thought came to her with the danger, and, without a word, she maintained her position in waiting for the progress of events. As the Indian had also sunk from sight, and some moments had now elapsed without his reappearance, she determined to make another effort for the recovery of the hatchet. She grasped it by the handle, and in the next moment the hand of the savage was upon her own. He felt that his grasp was on the fingers of a woman, and in a brief word and something of a chuckle, while he still maintained his hold upon it, he conveyed intelligence of the fact to those below. But it was a woman with a man's spirit with whom he contended, and her endeavor was successful to disengage herself. The same success did not attend her effort to recover the weapon. In the brief struggle with her enemy it had become disengaged from the wood, and while both strove to seize it, it
