THE DEFENSE OF THE FIVE



   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 wvas 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.
  ' Don't be too enthusiastic, Jim," said Henry.
  " I won't," replied Long Jim, " I'm cured."
  Lower crouched the five, taking advantage of the
bushes and little hillocks, and sending a bullet every
time they saw a flitting figure in the forest in iront of
them. Behind them they could still hear the roar of
the combat on the river. The crackle of the rifles
and the muskets was steady in their ears, while now
and then the note of a cannon boomed above it, and a
solid shot, curving over their heads, whizzed into the
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