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"What made that hole?" asked Colonel Zane. Wetzel lifted the quiver of arrows Jonathan had laid on the porch, and, selecting one, handed it to the colonel. The flint-head and a portion of the shaft were stained with blood. "The Shawnee!" exclaimed Colonel Zane.
Violently exerting himself, with both hands he wrenched away the weapon. The flint-head lacerating his flesh and scraping his shoulder bones caused sharpest agony. The pain gave away to a sudden sense of giddiness; he tried to run; a dark mist veiled his sight; he stumbled and fell. Then he seemed to sink into a great darkness, and knew no more.
A meeting such as this impending must be a matter only of close personal encounter and fencing with arm and wooden handle and flint-head of edge and weight. There was a clash of stone together, and, one after another, strong creatures with cloven skulls toppled backward, to fall into the babbling creek, their blood helping to change its coloring.
Bilkins wrote three or four letters to O'Rourke, and finally succeeded in extorting an epistle from that gentleman, in which he told Margaret to cheer up, that his fortune was as good as made, and that the day would come when she should ride through the town in her own coach, and no thanks to old flint-head, who pretended to be so fond of her. Mr.
Bilkins tried to conjecture who was meant by old flint-head, but was obliged to give it up. Mr. O'Rourke furthermore informed Margaret that he had three hundred dollars prize-money coming to him, and broadly intimated that when he got home he intended to have one of the most extensive blow-outs ever witnessed in Rivermouth. "Och!" laughed Margaret, "that's jist Larry over agin.
For a moment he appeared to be conscious of having the worst of the argument, then, rallying again, he answered the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his limited information would allow: "I am no scholar, and I care not who knows it; but, judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel hunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their grandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye."
Using a piece of soft stone as a pencil, he now marked the form of the flint, where it touched the wood, exactly, and worked at this with his knife, as patiently as a Chinaman, for several hours, until the wood fitted the irregularities and indentations of the flint to a nicety. This of itself caused the wood to hold the flint-head very firmly.
Then the wedges were removed, and when the handle was bound all round the split part with cord, and the flint-head enveloped in the same, the whole thing became like a solid mass. Gingerly and anxiously did Dominick apply it to a tree. To his joy his axe caused the chips to fly in all directions. He soon stopped, however, for fear of breaking it, and set off in triumph to the golden cave.
For a moment he appeared to be conscious of having the worst of the argument, then, rallying again, he answered the objection of his antagonist in the best manner his limited information would allow: "I am no scholar, and I care not who knows it; but judging from what I have seen, at deer chases and squirrel hunts, of the sparks below, I should think a rifle in the hands of their grandfathers was not so dangerous as a hickory bow and a good flint-head might be, if drawn with Indian judgment, and sent by an Indian eye."
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