Chapter XVII.
Joe awoke as from a fearsome nightmare. Returning consciousness
brought a vague idea that he had been dreaming of clashing weapons,
of yelling savages, of a conflict in which he had been clutched by
sinewy fingers. An acute pain pulsed through his temples; a bloody
mist glazed his eyes; a sore pressure cramped his arms and legs.
Surely he dreamed this distress, as well as the fight. The red film
cleared from his eyes. His wandering gaze showed the stern reality.
The bright sun, making the dewdrops glisten on the leaves, lighted
up a tragedy. Near him lay an Indian whose vacant, sightless eyes
were fixed in death. Beyond lay four more savages, the peculiar,
inert position of whose limbs, the formlessness, as it were, as if
they had been thrown from a great height and never moved again,
attested that here, too, life had been extinguished. Joe took in
only one detail--the cloven skull of the nearest--when he turned
away sickened. He remembered it all now. The advance, the rush, the
fight--all returned. He saw again Wetzel's shadowy form darting like
a demon into the whirl of conflict; he heard again that hoarse,
booming roar with which the Avenger accompanied his blows. Joe's
gaze swept the glade, but found no trace of the hunter.
He saw Silvertip and another Indian bathing a wound on Girty's head.
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