"O' course he's escaped the
bullets so fur. It's jest his luck."
"I think he knows we're here," said Henry, "and he's leading the attack on
us. But we'll never yield this ground and Paul to such a fellow."
"No!" said the others with one voice.
The clouds and vapors closed in again. The darkness rolled up in wave
after wave, and the renegade, leading on outlaw and red man, pressed the
attack; but the four met them with courage and spirit unshaken.
The clouds and vapors rolled over attack and defense, but through the
darkness fire answered fire. After a while the forest and the bayou, which
had witnessed such a desperate display of human energy, sank into darkness
and silence. The clouds, now in the zenith, began to give forth rain, but
it was a gentle, beneficent rain, and it fell silently on the faces of the
living and the dead alike.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CHOSEN TASK
Adam Colfax had gone through the battle unharmed, but that terrible night
left new gray in his hair. He was a religious man, and, when the rifle
fire died down in the forest and then went out, he uttered a devout prayer
of thankfulness. He and his train, on the whole, had come through better
than he had expected. There had been moments in the bayou when he thought
no mortal strength or skill could break the chain that bound them.
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