At this critical moment the
canoe was just near enough to the spot to allow this movement,
which was accompanied by no little noise, to be seen, and feeling
that there he must take in his companion, if anywhere, Deerslayer
urged the canoe forward to the rescue. His paddle had not been
raised twice, when the voice of Hurry was heard filling the air with
imprecations, and he rolled on the narrow beach, literally loaded
down with enemies. While prostrate, and almost smothered with his
foes, the athletic frontierman gave his loon-call, in a manner that
would have excited laughter under circumstances less terrific. The
figure in the water seemed suddenly to repent his own flight, and
rushed to the shore to aid his companion, but was met and immediately
overpowered by half a dozen fresh pursuers, who, just then, came
leaping down the bank.
"Let up, you painted riptyles- let up!" cried Hurry, too hard pressed
to be particular about the terms he used; "isn't it enough that I
am withed like a saw-log that ye must choke too!"
This speech satisfied Deerslayer that his friends were prisoners,
and that to land would be to share their fate He was already within
a hundred feet of the shore, when a few timely strokes of the paddle
not only arrested his advance, but forced him off to six or eight
times that distance from his enemies.
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