His long
thin figure fitted around the sinuosities of the earth, and he seemed to
have a curious gliding motion, sliding forward slowly to meet the enemy.
The darkness was nothing now to his accustomed eyes, and he sent his
bullets with sure aim toward the shadowy forms in the bushes in front of
them.
Long Jim forgot everything now but his rifle and the enemy there in the
thicket. He slid further and further, still drawing himself over the
ground in that terrible semblance of a serpent. Paul, seeing his face, was
frightened. "Jim! Jim!" he cried. "Stop!" But Long Jim slid slowly on. Tom
Ross said something, but it was lost in the whistling of a cannon shot
overhead.
They saw Long Jim stop the next moment, and Paul believed that he heard
him utter a little sigh. Long Jim's limbs contracted and straightened out
again with a jerk. Then he turned slowly over on his side and lay still, a
moment or two, after which he began to writhe violently. At the same time
he clapped his hand to his head and it came back red.
"Sol sometimes says I've a thick skull, an' 'ef so it's a good thing," he
muttered to himself.
He shook his head again and again, as if to clear it, and crept back to
his friends. There he tore off a portion of his deerskin hunting shirt,
tied it tightly around the wound, and went on with his firing.
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