Seeing it was useless to remain prostrate Henry leaped up. An arrow whizzed past his shoulder and would have struck him fairly in the breast had he not leaped to one side.
He, too, blazed away, and saw the leading Indian go down, shot through the breast, a serious if not a mortal wound. Then he pulled Mrs. Risley to her feet.
"Run!" he cried. "Run! It is your only chance. Hide in the woods!"
She limped off, but ere she had gotten a dozen steps two of the warriors were after her, and she was made a prisoner. In the meantime Henry retreated to a clump of birch trees and there made a stand against the remaining Indians.
The struggle, which lasted but a few minutes, was an unequal one. Another arrow was fired, and it grazed his left hand, causing the blood to flow freely, and making the stains afterward discovered by Dave. Then one of the red men came up behind the trees, and reaching out struck him with the flat side of a tomahawk. Henry tried to turn and grapple with his assailant, but suddenly his senses left him and he knew no more.
"'Tis one of the Morris family," said the Indian with the torch, in his native tongue. He made an examination. "He is not dead."
"A good capture," said another. "We must take him along. Gonawak, you must help to carry him."
"And what of the woman?" asked the warrior addressed as Gonawak, well known throughout that territory for his extreme cruelty.
"Talking Deer will take care of her," was the answer. "He is to take care of all of them until this raid is over."
But little more was said, and in a few minutes the unconscious form of the young hunter was picked up and borne through the forest in the direction of the nearest stream. As has been said, water leaves no trail, and for this reason the redmen instinctively used the shallow stream for a roadway.
When Henry regained his senses he found himself strapped to the back of a horse and moving slowly westward through the forest. The wound on his hand had been allowed to bleed itself out. He felt both weak and stiff and had a dull ache in his head, where the tomahawk had landed and raised a good-sized lump.
By a blaze on the animal's neck, Henry recognized the horse he rode as one belonging to a pioneer living in that vicinity. He was in the company of nine redmen, four of whom were mounted on stolen horses. From this he inferred that the Risley cabin was not the only one which had been attacked on that fatal night.