"It shall be done," said Roland, as much relieved by the suggestion as he was pleased by the humane spirit that prompted it: "my two soldiers can watch, if they cannot fight, and I shall take care they watch well."

Thus composing the difficulty, preparations were immediately made to occupy the ruin, into which Roland, having previously entered with the Emperor, and struck a light, introduced his weary kinswoman with her companion Telie; while Nathan and Pardon Dodge led the horses into the ravine, where they could be easily confined, and allowed to browse and drink at will, being at the same time beyond the reach of observation from any foe that might yet be prowling through the forest.



CHAPTER XIV.

The light struck by the negro was soon succeeded by a fire, for which ample materials lay ready at hand among the ruins; and as it blazed up from the broken and long deserted hearth, the travellers could better view the dismal aspect of the cabin. It consisted, as has been mentioned, of but a single remaining apartment, with walls of logs, from whose chinks the clay, with which they had been originally plastered, had long since vanished, with here and there a fragment of a log itself, leaving a thousand gaps for the admission of wind and rain. The ceiling of poles (for it had once possessed a kind of garret) had fallen down under the weight of the rotting roof, of which but a small portion remained, and that in the craziest condition; and the floor of puncheons, or planks of split logs, was in a state of equal dilapidation, more than half of it having rotted away, and mingled with the earth on which it reposed. Doors and windows there were none; but two mouldering gaps in the front and the rear walls, and another of greater magnitude opening, from the side, into what had once been the hall or passage (though now a platform heaped with fragments of charred timber), showed where the narrow entrance and loop-hole windows had once existed. The former was without leaf or defence of any kind, unless such might have been found in three or four logs standing against the wall hard by, whence they could be easily removed and piled against the opening; for which purpose, Roland did not doubt they had been used, and by the houseless Nathan himself. But a better protection was offered by the ruins of the other apartment, which had fallen down in such a way as almost to block up the door, leaving a passage in and out, only towards the rear of the building; and, in case of sudden attack and seizure of this sole entrance, there were several gaps at the bottom of the wall, through one of which, in particular, it would be easy enough to effect a retreat. At this place, the floor was entirely wanting, and the earth below washed into a gully communicating with the rocky ravine, of which it might be considered the head.

But the looks of the soldier did not dwell long upon the dreary spectacle of ruin; they were soon cast upon the countenance of Edith, concealed so long by darkness. It was even wanner and paler than he feared to find it, and her eye shone with an unnatural lustre, as it met his own. She extended her hands and placed them in his, gazed upon him piercingly, but without speaking, or indeed seeming able to utter a single word.

"Be of good heart," he said, replying to the look of inquiry; "we are unfortunate, Edith, but we are safe."

"Thank Heaven!" she exclaimed, but more wildly than fervently: "I have been looking every moment to see you shot dead at my feet! Would I had died, Roland, my brother, before I brought you to this fatal land—But I distress you! Well, I will not be frightened more. But is not this an adventure for a woman that never before looked upon a cut finger without fainting? Truly, Roland,—'truly,' as friend Nathan says,—it is as ridiculous as frightful: and then this cabin, where they killed so many poor women and children,—is it not a ridiculous lodging place for Edith Forrester? a canopy of clouds, a couch of clay, with owls and snakes for my bed-fellows—truly, truly, truly, it is very ridiculous!"

It seemed, for a moment, as if the maiden's effort to exchange her melancholy and terror for a more joyous feeling, would have resulted in producing even greater agitation than before; but the soothing words of Roland, and the encouraging countenance maintained by Telie Doe, who seemed little affected by their forlorn situation, gradually tranquilised her mind, and enabled her the better to preserve the air of levity and mirthfulness, which she so vainly attempted at first to assume. This moment of calm Roland took advantage of to apprise her of the necessity of recruiting her spirits with a few hours' asleep; for which purpose he began to look about him for some suitable place in which to strew her a bed of fern and leaves.

"Why, here is one strewn for me already," she cried, with an affected laugh, pointing to a corner, in which lay a mass of leaves so green and fresh that they looked as if plucked but a day or two before: "truly, Nathan has not invited me to his hiding-place to lodge me meanly (Heaven forgive me for laughing at the poor man; for we owe him our lives!) nay, nor to send me supperless to bed. See!" she added, pointing to a small brazen kettle, which her quick eye detected among the leaves, and which was soon followed by a second that Emperor stirred up from its concealment, and both of them, as was soon perceived, still retaining the odour of a recent savoury stew: "Look well, Emperor: where the kitchen is, the larder cannot be far distant. I warrant we shall find that Nathan has provided us a good supper."

"Such, perhaps, as a woodman only can eat," said Roland, who, somewhat surprised at the superfluous number of Nathan's valuables (for to Nathan, he doubted not, they belonged), had begun stirring the leaves, and succeeded in raking up with his rifle, which he had not laid aside, a little earthen pouch, well stored with parched corn. "A strange fellow, this Nathan," he muttered: "he really spoke as if he had not visited the ruin for a considerable period; whereas it is evident he must have slept here last night. But he seems to affect mystery in all that concerns his own private movements—it is the character of his persuasion."

While Roland, with the females, was thus laying hands, and speculating, upon the supposed chattels of their conductor, Nathan himself entered the apartment, betraying some degree of agitation in his countenance; whilst the faithful Peter, who followed at his side, manifested equal uneasiness, by snuffing the air, whining, and rubbing himself frequently against his master's legs.

"Friends," he cried, abruptly, "Peter talks too plainly to be mistaken: there is mischief nigh at hand, though where, or how it can be, sinner and weak foolish man that I am, I know not: we must leave warm fires and soft beds, and take refuge again in the woods."

This unexpected announcement again banished the blood from Edith's cheeks. She had, on his entrance, caught the pouch of corn from Roland's hands, intending to present it to the guide, with some such light expressions as should convince her kinsman of her recovered spirits; but the visage and words of Nathan struck her dumb, and she stood holding it in her hand, without speaking a word, until it caught Nathan's eye. He snatched it from her grasp, surveying it with astonishment and even alarm, and only ceased to look at it, when little Peter, who had run into the corner and among the bed of leaves, uttered a whine louder than before. The pouch dropped from Nathan's hand as his eye fell upon the shining-kettles, on which he gazed as if petrified.

"What, in Heaven's name, is the matter!" demanded Roland, himself taking the alarm: "are you frighted at your own kettles?"

"Mine!" cried Nathan, clasping his hands, and looking terror and remorse together—"If thee will kill me, friend, thee will scarce do amiss; for, miserable, blind sinner that I am, I have led thee poor luckless women into the very lion's den! into the hiding-place and head-quarters of the very cut-throats that is seeking to destroy thee! Up and away—does thee not hear Peter howling at the door? Hist! Peter, hist!—Truly, this is a pretty piece of business for thee, Nathan Slaughter!—Does thee not hear them close at hand?"

"I hear the hooting of an owl and the answer of his fellow," replied Roland; but his words were cut short by a second howl from Peter, and the cry of his master, "Up, if thee be not besotted; drag thee women by the hands and follow me."

With these words, Nathan was leaping towards the door, when a cry from Roland arrested him. He looked round and perceived Edith had fainted in the soldier's arms. "I will save the poor thing for thee—help thou the other," he cried, and snatching her up as if she had been but a feather, he was again in the act of springing to the door, when brought to a stand by a far more exciting impediment. A shriek from Telie Doe, uttered in sudden terror, was echoed by a laugh, strangely wild, harsh, guttural, and expressive of equal triumph and derision, coming from the door; looking to which the eyes of Nathan and the soldier fell upon a tall and naked Indian, shorn and painted, who, rifle in hand, the grim smile yet writhing on his features, and exclaiming with a mockery of friendly accost, "Bo-zhoo,[8] brudders,—Injun good friend!" was stepping that moment into the hovel; and as if that spectacle and those sounds were not enough to chill the heart's blood of the spectators, there were seen over his shoulders, the gleaming eyes, and heard behind his back, the malign laughter of three or four equally wild and ferocious companions.

[Footnote 8: Bo-zhoo—a corruption of the French bon jour, a word of salutation adopted by Western Indians from the Voyageurs of Canada, and used by them with great zeal by night as well as by day.]

"To the door, if thee is a man,—rush!" cried Nathan, with a voice more like the blast of a bugle than the tone of a frighted man of peace; and casting Edith from his arms, he set the example of attack or flight—Roland scarcely knew which,—by leaping against the breast of the daring intruder. Both fell together across the threshold, and Roland obeying the call with desperate and frantic ardour, stumbled over their bodies, pitching headlong into the passage, whereby he escaped the certain death that otherwise awaited him, three several rifle-shots having been that instant poured upon him from a distance of scarce as many feet.

"Strike, if thee conscience permits thee!" he heard the voice of Nathan cry in his ears, and the next moment, a shot from the interior of the hovel, heralded by a quavering cry from the faithful Emperor,—"Lorra-gor! nebber harm an Injun in my life!" struck the hatchet from the shattered hand of a foeman, who had taken advantage of his downfall to aim a fatal blow at him while rising. A yell of pain came from the maimed and baffled warrior, who, springing over the blackened ruins before the door, escaped the stroke of the clubbed rifle which the soldier aimed at him in return, the piece having been discharged by the fall. The cry of the flying assailant was echoed by what seemed in Roland's ears the yells of fifty supporters, two of whom he saw within six feet of him, brandishing their hatchets, as if in the act of flinging them at his almost defenceless person. It was at this moment that he experienced aid from a quarter whence it was almost least expected; a rifle was discharged from the ravine, and as one of the fierce foes suddenly dropped, mortally wounded upon the floor, he heard the voice of Pardon, the Yankee, crying in tones of desperation, "When there is no dodging 'em, then I'm the man for 'em, or it a'n't no matter!"

"Bravo! bravely done, Emperor and Dodge both!" cried Roland, to whom this happy and quite unexpected display of courage from his followers, and its successful results, imparted a degree of assurance and hope not before felt; for, indeed, up to this moment, his feeling had been the mere frenzy of despair—"Courage, and rush on!" And with these words, he did not hesitate to dash against the remaining foe, striking up the uplifted hatchet with his rifle, and endeavouring with the same effort to dash his weapon into the warrior's face. But the former part only of the manoeuvre succeeded; the tomahawk was indeed dashed aside, but the rifle was torn from his own grasp, and the next moment he was clutched as in the embrace of a bear, and pressed with suffocating force upon the breast of his undaunted adversary.

"Brudder!" growled the savage, and the foam flew from his grinning lips, advanced until they were almost in contact with the soldier's face—"Brudder!" he cried, as he felt his triumph, and twined his arms still more tightly around Roland's frame, "Long-knife nothing! hab a scalp, Shawnee!"

With these words, he sprang from the broken floor of the passage, on which the encounter began, and dragging the soldier along, made as if he would have carried him off alive. But although in the grasp of a man of much superior strength, the resolution and activity of Roland preserved him from a destiny at once so fearful and ignoble. He exerted the strength he possessed at the instant when the bulky captor was springing from the floor to the broken ground beneath, and with such effect, that, though it did not entirely release him from his grasp, it carried them headlong to the earth together; whence, after a brief and blind struggle, both rose together, each clutching at the weapon that promised soonest to terminate the contest. The pistols of the soldier, which, as well as Emperor's, the peaceful Nathan had taken the precaution to carry with him into the ruin, had been forgotten in the suddenness and hurry of the assault; his rifle had been wrested from his hands, and thrown he knew not where. The knife, which, like a true adventurer of the forest, he had buckled in his belt, was ready to be grasped; but the instinct of long habits carried his hand to the broad-sword, which was yet strapped to his thigh; and this, as he rose, he attempted to draw, not doubting that a single blow of the trusty steel would rid him of his brown enemy. But the Shawnee, as bold, as alert, and far more discreet, better acquainted, too, with those savage personal rencontres which, make up so large a portion of Indian warfare, had drawn his knife before he had yet regained his footing; and before the Virginian's sword was half unsheathed, the hand that tugged at it was again seized and held as in a vice, while the warrior, elevating his own free weapon above his head, prepared, with a laugh and whoop of triumph, to plunge it into the soldier's throat. His countenance, grim with warpaint, grimmer with ferocious exultation, was distinctly perceived, the bright blaze of the fire shining through the gaps of the hovel, so as to illuminate every feature; and Roland, as he strove in vain to clutch at the uplifted arm so as to avert the threatened blow, could distinguish every motion of the weapon, and every change of his foeman's visage. But he did not even then despair, for he was, in all circumstances affecting only himself, a man of true intrepidity; and it was only when, on a sudden, the light wholly vanished from the cabin, as if the brands had been scattered and trodden out, that he began to anticipate a fatal result from the advantage possessed by his opponent. But at that very instant, and while, blinded by the sudden darkness, he was expecting the blow which he no longer knew how to avoid, the laugh of the warrior, now louder and more exultant than before, was suddenly changed to a yell of agony. A jet of warm blood, at the same moment, gushed over Roland's right arm; and the savage, struck by an unknown hand, or by a random ball, fell a dead man at his feet, overwhelming the soldier in his fall.

"Up, and do according to thee conscience!" cried Nathan Slaughter; whose friendly arm, more nervous than that of his late foe, at this conjuncture jerked Roland from beneath the body: "for, truly, thee fights like unto a young lion, or an old bear; and, truly, I will not censure thee, if thee kills a whole dozen of the wicked cut-throats! Here is thee gun and thee pistols: fire and shout aloud with thee voice; for, of a verity, thee enemies is confounded by thee resolution: do thee make them believe thee has been reinforced by numbers."

And with that the peaceful Nathan, uplifting his voice, and springing among the ruins from log to log, began to utter a series of shouts, all designed to appear as if coming from different throats, and all expressing such manly courage and defiance, that even Pardon Dodge, who yet lay ensconced among the rocks of the ravine, and Emperor, the negro, who, it seems, had taken post behind the ruins at the door, felt their spirits wax resolute and valiant, and added their voices to the din, the one roaring, "Come on, ye 'tarnal critturs, if you must come!" while the other bellowed, with equal spirit, "Don't care for niggah Injun no way—will fight and die for massa and missie!"

All these several details, from the moment of the appearance of the warrior at the door until the loud shouts of the besieged travellers took the place of the savage whoops previously sounded, passed in fewer moments than we have taken pages to record them. The rush of Nathan against the leader, the discomfiture of one, and the death of his two comrades, were indeed the work of but an instant, as it seemed to Roland; and he was scarce aware of the assault, before he perceived that it was over. The successful, and, doubtless, the wholly unexpected resistance of the little party, resulting in a manner so fatal to the advanced guard of assailants, had struck terror and confusion into the main body, whose presence had been only made known by their yells, not a single shot having yet been fired by them.

It was in this moment of confusion that Nathan sprang to the side of Roland, who was hastily recharging his piece, and catching him by the hand, said, with a voice that betrayed the deepest agitation, though his countenance was veiled in night,—"Friend, I have betrayed thee poor women into danger, so that the axe and scalping-knife is now near their innocent poor heads."

"It needs not to speak of it," said Roland; adding hastily. "The miscreant that entered the cabin—did you kill him?"

"Kill, friend! I kill!" echoed Nathan, with accents more disturbed than ever; "would thee have me a murderer? Truly, I did creep over him, and leave the cabin."

"And left him in it alive!" cried Roland, who was about to rush into the hovel, when Nathan detained him, saying, "Don't thee be alarmed, friend. Truly, thee may think it was ill of me to fall upon him so violently; but, truly, be must have split his head upon a log, or wounded himself with a splinter;—or perhaps the coloured person stuck him with a knife; but, truly, as it happened his blood spouted on my hand, by reason of the hurt he got; so that I left him clean dead."

"Good!" said Roland; "but, by Heaven, I hoped and believed you had yourself finished him like a man. But time presses: we must retreat again to the woods,—they are yet open behind us."

"Thee is mistaken," said Nathan; and, as if to confirm his words, there arose at that moment a loud whooping, with the crack of a dozen or more rifles, let fly with impotent rage by the enemy, showing plainly enough that the ruin was already actually environed.

"The ravine,—the river!" cried Forrester; "we can swim it with the horses, if it be not fordable."

"It is a torrent that would sweep thee, with thee strongest war-horse, to perdition," muttered Nathan: "does thee not hear how it roars among the rocks and cliffs? It is here deep, narrow, and rocky; and, though, in the season of drought, a child might step across it from rock to rock, it is a cataract in the time of floods. No, friend; I have brought thee into a trap whence thee has no escape, unless thee would desert these poor helpless women."

"Put but them in safety," said Roland, "and care not for the rest.—And yet I do not despair: we have shown what we can do by resolution: we can keep the cut-throats at bay till the morning."

"And what will that advantage thee, except to see thee poor females murdered in the light of the sun, instead of having them killed out of thee sight in darkness? Truly, the first glimmer of dawn will be the signal of death to all; for then the Shawnees will find thee weakness, if indeed they do not find it before."

"Man!" said Roland, "why should you drive me to despair? Give me better comfort,—give me counsel, or say no more. You have brought us to this pass: do your best to save us, or our blood be upon your head!"

To these words of unjust reproach, wrung from the young soldier by the bitterness of his feelings, Nathan at first made no reply. Preserving silence for awhile, he said, at last:

"Well, friend, I counsel thee to be of good heart, and to do what thee can, making thee enemies, since thee cannot increase thee friends, as few in numbers as possible;—to do which, friend," he added, suddenly, "if thee will shoot that evil creature that lies like a log on the earth, creeping towards the ruin, I will have no objection!"

With these words, which were uttered in a low voice, Nathan, pulling the young man behind a screen of fallen timbers near to which they stood, endeavoured to point him out the enemy whom his eye had that moment detected crawling towards the hovel, with the subtle motion of a serpent. But the vision of Roland, not yet accustomed to trace objects in the darkness of a wood, failed to discover the approaching foe.

"Truly," said Nathan, somewhat impatiently, "if thee will not consider it as an evil thing of me, and a blood-guiltiness, I will hold thee gun for thee, and thee shall pull the trigger!" which piece of service the man of peace, having doubtless satisfied his conscience of its lawfulness, was actually about to render the soldier, when the good intention was set at naught by the savage suddenly leaping to his feet, followed by a dozen others, all springing, as it seemed, out of the earth, and rushing with wild yells against the ruin. The suddenness and fury of the attack struck dismay to the bosom of the soldier, who, discharging his rifle, and snatching up his pistols, already in imagination beheld the bloody fingers of a barbarian grasped among the bright locks of his Edith; when Nathan, crying, "Blood upon my hands, but not upon my head!—give it to them, murdering dogs!" let fly his own piece upon the throng; the effect of which, together with the discharge of Roland's pistols immediately after, was such as to stagger the assailants, of whom but a single one preserved resolution enough to advance upon the defenders, whooping to his companions in vain to follow. "Thee will remember I fight to save the lives of thee helpless women!" muttered Nathan, in Roland's ear; and then as if the first act of warfare had released him for ever from all peaceful obligations, awakened a courage and appetite for blood superior even to the soldier's, and, in other words, set him entirely beside himself, he rushed against the advancing Shawnee, dealing him a blow with the butt of his heavy stocked rifle that crushed through skull and brain as through a gourd, killing the man on the spot. Then leaping like a buck to avoid the shot of the others, he rushed back to the ruin, and grasping the hand of the admiring soldier, and wringing it with all his might, he cried, "Thee sees what thee has brought me to! Friend, thee has seen me shed a man's blood!—But, nevertheless, friend, the villains shall not kill thee poor women, nor harm a hair of their heads."

The valour of the man of peace was fortunately seconded on this occasion by Dodge and the negro, the former from his hiding place in the ravine, the latter from among the ruins; and the enemy, thus seriously warned of the danger of approaching too nigh a fortress manned by what very naturally appeared to them eight different persons,—for such, including the pistols, was the number of fire-arms,—retired precipitately to the woods, where they expressed their hostility only by occasional whoops, and now and then by a shot fired impotently against the ruins.

The success of this second defence, the spirited behaviour of Dodge and Emperor, but more than all the happy change in the principles and practice of Nathan, who seemed as if about to prove that he could deserve the nickname of Tiger so long bestowed upon him in derision, greatly relieved the spirits of the soldier, who was not without hopes of being able to maintain the contest until the enemy should be discouraged and driven off, or some providential accident bring him succour. He took advantage of the cessation of hostilities to creep into the hovel and whisper words of assurance to his feebler dependents, of whom indeed Telie Doe now betrayed the greatest distress and agitation, while Edith, on the contrary, maintained, as he judged—for the fire was extinguished, and he saw not her countenance—a degree of tranquillity he had not dared to hope. It was a tranquillity, however, resulting from despair and stupor,—a lethargy of spirit, resulting from overwrought feelings, in which she happily remained, more than half unconscious of what was passing around her.



CHAPTER XV.

The enemy, twice repulsed, and on both occasions with severe loss, had been taught the folly of exposing themselves too freely to the fire of the travellers; but although driven back, they manifested little inclination to fly further than was necessary to obtain shelter, and as little to give over their fierce purposes. Concealing themselves severally behind logs, rocks, and bushes, and so disposing their force as to form a line around the ruin, open only towards the river, where escape was obviously impracticable, they employed themselves keeping a strict watch upon the hovel, firing repeated volleys, and as often uttering yells, with which they sought to strike terror into the hearts of the besieged. Occasionally some single warrior, bolder than the rest, would creep near the ruins, and obtaining such shelter as he could, discharge his piece at any mouldering beam, or other object, which his fancy converted into the exposed body of a defender. But the travellers had taken good care to establish themselves in such positions among the ruins as offered the best protection; and although the bullets whistled sharp and nigh, not a single one had yet received a wound; nor was there much reason to apprehend injury so long as the darkness of night befriended them.

Yet it was obvious to all that this state of security could not last long, and that it existed only because the enemy was not yet aware of his advantage. The condition of the ruins was such that a dozen men of sufficient spirit, dividing themselves, and creeping along the earth, might at any moment make their way to any and every part of the hovel without being seen, when a single rush must put it in their power. An open assault indeed from the whole body of besiegers, whose number was reckoned by Nathan at full fifteen or twenty, must have produced the same success, though with the loss of several lives. A random shot might at any moment destroy or disable one of the little garrison, and thus rob one important corner of the hovel, which, from its dilapidated state was wholly indefensible from within of defence. It was indeed, as Roland felt, more than folly to hope that all should escape unharmed for many hours longer. But the worst fear of all was that previously suggested by Nathan: all might survive the perils of the night; but what fate was to be expected when the coming of day should expose the party, in all its true weakness, to the eyes of the enemy? If relief came not before morning, Roland's heart whispered him, it must come in vain. But the probabilities of relief, what were they? The question was asked of Nathan, and the answer went like iron through Roland's soul. They were in the deepest and most solitary part of the forest, twelve miles from Bruce's Station, and at least eight from that at which the emigrants were to lodge; with no other places within twice the distance, from which help could be obtained. They had left, three or four miles behind, the main and only road on which volunteers, summoned from the Western Stations to repel the invasion, of which the news had arrived before Roland's departure from Bruce's village, could be expected to pass; if indeed the strong force of the enemy posted at the Upper Ford had not cut off all communication between the two districts. From Bruce's Station little or no assistance could be hoped, the entire strength of its garrison, as Roland well knew, having long since departed to share in the struggle on the north side of Kentucky. Assistance could be looked for only from his late companions, the emigrants, from whom he had parted in an evil hour. But how were they to be made acquainted with his situation?

The discussion of these questions almost distracted the young man. Help could only come from themselves. Would it not be possible to cut their way through the besiegers? He proposed a thousand wild schemes of escape; now he would mount his trusty steed, and dashing among the enemy, receive their fire, distract their attention, and perhaps draw them in pursuit, while Nathan and the others galloped off with the women in another quarter; and again, he would plunge with them into the boiling torrent below, trusting to the strength of the horses to carry them through in safety.

To these and other frantic proposals, uttered in the intervals of combat, which was still maintained, with occasional demonstrations on the part of the enemy of advancing to a third assault, Nathan replied only by representing the certain death they would bring upon all, especially "the poor helpless women," whose condition, with the reflection that he had brought them into it, seemed ever to dwell upon his mind, producing feelings of remorseful excitement not inferior even to the compunctions which he expressed at every shot discharged by him at the foe. Indeed his conscience seemed sorely distressed and perplexed; now he upbraided himself with being the murderer of the two poor women, and now of his Shawnee fellow-creatures; now he wrung the soldier by the hand, begging him to bear witness that he was shedding blood, not out of malice or wantonness, or even self-defence, but purely to save the innocent scalps of poor women, whose blood would be otherwise on his head; and now beseeching the young man with equal fervour to let the world know of his doings, that the blame might fall, not upon the faith of which he was an unworthy professor, but upon him, the evil-doer and backslider. But with all his remorse and contrition, he manifested no inclination to give over the work of fighting; but, on the contrary, fired away with extreme good-will at every evil Shawnee creature that showed himself, encouraging Roland to do the same, and exhibiting throughout the whole contest the most exemplary courage and good conduct.

But courage and good conduct, although so unexpectedly manifested in the time of need by all his companions, Roland felt could only serve to defer for a few hours the fate of his party. The night wore away fast, the assailants grew bolder; and from the louder yells and more frequent shots coming from them, it seemed as if their numbers, instead of diminishing under his own fire, were gradually increasing by the dropping in of their scouts from the forest. At the same time, he became sensible that his stores of ammunition were fast decreasing.

"Friend," said Nathan, wringing the soldier's hand for the twentieth time, when made acquainted with the deficiency, "it is written, that thee women shall be murdered before thee eyes! Nevertheless I will do my best to save them. Friend, I must leave thee! Thee shall have assistance. Can thee hold out the hovel till morning? But it is foolish to ask thee: thee must hold it out, and with none save the coloured person and the man Dodge to help thee; for I say to thee, it has come to this at last, as I thought it would: I must break through the lines of thee Injun foes, and find thee assistance."

"It is impossible," said Roland in despair; "you will only provoke your destruction."

"It may be, friend, as thee says," responded Nathan; "nevertheless, friend, for thee women's sake, I will adventure it; for it is I, miserable sinner that I am, that have brought them to this pass, and that must bring them out of it again, if man can do it."

At a moment of less grief and desperation, Roland would have better appreciated the magnitude of the service which Nathan thus offered to attempt, and even hesitated to permit what must have manifestly seemed the throwing away of a human life. But the emergency was too great to allow the operation of any but selfish feelings. The existence of his companions, the life of his Edith, depended upon procuring relief, and this could be obtained in no other way. If the undertaking was dangerous in the extreme, he saw it with the eyes of a soldier as well as a lover: it was a feat he would himself have dared without hesitation, could it have promised, in his hands, any relief to his followers.

"Go, then, and God be with you," he muttered, eagerly "you have our lives in your hand. But it will be long, long before you can reach the band on foot. Yet do not weary or pause by the way. I have but little wealth; but with what I have I will reward you."

"Friend," said Nathan proudly, "what I do I do for no lucre of reward, but for pity of thee poor women; for truly I have seen the murdering and scalping of poor women before, and the seeing of the same has left blood upon my head, which is a mournful thing to think of."

"Well, be not offended: do what you can—our lives may rest on a single minute."

"I will do what I can, friend," replied Nathan; "and if I can but pass safely through thee foes, there is scarce a horse in thee company, were it even thee war-horse, that shall run to thee friends more fleetly. But, friend, do thee hold out the house: use thee powder charily; keep up the spirits of thee two men, and be of good heart theeself, fighting valiantly, and slaying according to thee conscience; and then, friend, if it be Heaven's will, I will return to thee, and help thee out of thee troubles."

With these words, Nathan turned from the soldier, setting out upon his dangerous duty with a courage and self-devotion of which Roland did not yet know all the merit. He threw himself upon the earth, and muttering to little Peter, "Now, Peter, as thee ever served thee master well and truly, serve him well and truly now," began to glide away amongst the ruins, making his way from log to log, and bush to bush, close behind the animal, who seemed to determine the period and direction of every movement. His course was down the river, the opposite of that by which the party had reached the ruin, in which quarter the woods were highest, and promised the most accessible, as well as the best shelter; though that could be reached only in the event of his successfully avoiding the different barbarians hidden among the bushes on its border. He soon vanished, with his dog, from the eyes of the soldier; who now, in pursuance of instructions previously given him by Nathan, caused his two followers to let fly a volley among the trees, which had the expected effect of drawing another in return from the foes, accompanied by their loudest whoops of menace and defiance. In this manner Nathan, as he drew nigh the wood, was enabled to form correct opinions as to the different positions of the besiegers, and to select that point in the line which seemed the weakest; while the attention of the foe was in a measure drawn off, so as to give him the better opportunity of advancing on them unobserved. With this object in view, a second and third volley were fired by the little garrison; after which they ceased making such feints of hostility, and left him, as he had directed, to his fate.

It was then that, with a beating heart, Roland awaited the event; and as he began to figure to his imagination the perils which Nathan must necessarily encounter in the undertaking, he listened for the shout of triumph that he feared would, each moment, proclaim the capture or death of his messenger. But he listened in vain,—at least, in vain for such sounds as his skill might interpret into evidences of Nathan's fate: he heard nothing but the occasional crack of a rifle aimed at the ruin, with the yell of the savage that fired it, the rush of the breeze, the rumbling of the thunder, and the deep-toned echoes from the river below. There was nothing whatever occurred, at least for a quarter of an hour, by which he might judge what was the issue of the enterprise; and he was beginning to indulge the hope that Nathan had passed safely through the besiegers, when a sudden yell of a peculiarly wild and thrilling character was uttered in the wood in the quarter in which Nathan had fled; and this, exciting, as it seemed to do, a prodigious sensation among his foes, filled him with anxiety and dread. To his ears the shout expressed fury and exultation such as might well be felt at the sudden discovery and capture of the luckless messenger; and his fear that such had been the end of Nathan's undertaking was greatly increased by what followed. The shots and whoops suddenly ceased, and, for ten minutes or more, all was silent, save the roar of the river, and the whispering of the fitful breeze. "They have taken him alive, poor wretch!" muttered the soldier, "and now they are forcing from him a confession of our weakness!"

It seemed as if there might be some foundation for the suspicion; for presently a great shout burst from the enemy, and the next moment a rush was made against the ruin as if by the whole force of the enemy. "Fire!" shouted Roland to his companions: "if we must die, let it be like men;" and no sooner did he behold the dark figures of the assailants leaping among the ruins, than he discharged his rifle and a pair of pistols which he had reserved in his own hands, the other pair having been divided between Dodge and the negro, who used them with equal resolution, and with an effect that Roland had not anticipated; the assailants, apparently daunted by the weight of the volley, seven pieces having been discharged in rapid succession, instantly beat a retreat, resuming their former positions. From these, however, they now maintained an almost incessant fire; and by and by several of them, stealing cautiously up, effected a lodgment in a distant part of the ruins, whence, without betraying any especial desire to come to closer quarters, they began to carry on the war in a manner that greatly increased Roland's alarm, their bullets flying about and into the hovel so thickly that he became afraid lest some of them should reach its hapless inhabitants. He was already debating within himself the propriety of transferring Edith and her companion from this ruinous and now dangerous abode to the ravine, where they might be sheltered from all danger, at least for a time, when a bolt of lightning, as he at first thought it, shot from the nearest group of foes, flashed over his head, and striking what remained of the roof, stood trembling in it, an arrow of blazing fire. The appearance of this missile, followed, as it immediately was, by several others discharged from the same tow, confirmed the soldier's resolution to remove the females, while it greatly increased his anxiety; for although there was little fear that the flames could be communicated from the arrows to the roof so deeply saturated by the late rains, yet each, while burning, served, like a flambeau, to illuminate the ruins below, and must be expected before long to reveal the helplessness of the party, and to light the besiegers to their prey.

With such fears on his mind, he hesitated no longer to remove his cousin and her companion to the ravine; which was effected with but little risk or difficulty, the ravine heading, as was mentioned before, under the floor of the hovel itself, and its borders being so strewn with broken timbers and planks, as to screen the party from observation. He concealed them both among the rocks and brambles with which the hollow abounded, listened a moment to the rush of the flood as it swept the precipitous bank, and the roar with which it seemed struggling among rocky obstructions above, and smiling with the grim thought, that, when resistance was no longer availing, there was yet a refuge for his kinswoman within the dark bosom of those troubled waters, to which he felt, with the stern resolution of a Roman father rather than of a Christian lover, that he could, when nothing else remained, consign her with his own hands, he returned to the ruins, to keep up the appearance of still defending it, and to preserve the entrance of the ravine.



CHAPTER XVI.

The flaming arrows were still shot in vain at the water-soaked roof, and the combustibles with which they were armed, burning out very rapidly, produced hut little of that effect in illuminating the ruins which Roland had apprehended, and for which they had been perhaps in part designed; and, in consequence, the savages soon ceased to shoot them. A more useful ally to the besiegers was promised in the moon, which was now rising over the woods, and occasionally revealing her wan and wasted crescent through gaps in the clouds. Waning in her last quarter, and struggling amid banks of vapour, she yet retained sufficient, magnitude and lustre, when risen a few more degrees, to dispel the almost sepulchral darkness that had hitherto invested the ruins, and thus proved a more effectual protection to the travellers than their own courage. Of this Roland was well aware; and he watched the increasing light with sullen and gloomy forebodings; though still exhorting his two supporters to hope and courage, and setting them a constant example of vigilance and resolution. But neither hope nor courage, neither vigilance nor resolution, availed to deprive the foe of the advantage he had gained in effecting a lodgment among the ruins, where four or five different warriors still maintained a hot fire upon the hovel, doing, of course, little harm, as it was entirely deserted, but threatening mischief enough, when it should fall into their hands,—a catastrophe that was deferred only in consequence of the extreme cautiousness with which they now conducted hostilities, the travellers making only a show of defending it, though sensible that it almost entirely commanded the ravine.

It was now more than an hour and a half since Nathan had departed, and Roland was beginning himself to feel the hope he encouraged in the others, that the man of peace had actually succeeded in effecting his escape, and that the wild whoop which he at first esteemed the evidence of his capture or death, and the assault that followed it, had been caused by some circumstance having no relation to Nathan whatever,—perhaps by the arrival of a reinforcement, whose coming had infused new spirit into the breasts of the so long baffled assailants. "If he have escaped," he muttered, "he must already be near the camp:—a strong man and fleet runner might reach it in an hour. In another hour,—nay, perhaps in half an hour, for there are good horses and bold hearts in the band,—I shall hear the rattle of their hoofs in the wood, and the yells of these cursed bandits, scattered like dust under their footsteps. If I can but hold the ravine for an hour! Thank Heaven, the moon is a second time lost in clouds, the thunder is again rolling through the sky! A tempest now were better than gales of Araby,—a thunder-gust were our salvation."

The wishes of the soldier seemed about, to be fulfilled. The clouds, which for half an hour had been breaking up, again gathered, producing thicker darkness than before; and heavy peals of thunder, heralded by pale sheets of lightning that threw a ghastly but insufficient light over objects, were again heard rattling at a distance over the woods. The fire of the savages began to slacken, and by and by entirely ceased. They waited perhaps for the moment when the increasing glare of the lightning should enable them better to distinguish between the broken timbers, the objects of so many wasted volleys, and the crouching bodies of the defenders.

The soldier took advantage of this moment of tranquillity to descend to the river to quench his thirst, and to bear back some of the liquid element to his fainting followers. While engaged in this duty he cast his eyes upon the scene, surveying with sullen interest the flood that cut off his escape from the fatal hovel. The mouth of the ravine was wide and scattered over with rocks and bushes, that even projected for some little space into the water, the latter vibrating up and down in a manner that proved the strength and irregularity of the current. The river was here bounded by frowning cliffs, from which, a furlong or two above, had fallen huge blocks of stone that greatly contracted its narrow channel; and among these the swollen waters surged and foamed with the greatest violence, producing that hollow roar, which was so much in keeping with the solitude of the ruin, and so proper an accompaniment to the growling thunder and the wild yells of the warriors. Below these massive obstructions, and opposite the mouth of the ravine, the channel had expanded into a pool; in which the waters might have regained their tranquillity and rolled along in peace, but for the presence of an island, which, growing up in the centre of the expanse, consolidated by the roots of a thousand willows and other trees that delight in such humid soils, and, in times of flood, covered by a raft of drift timber entangled among its trees, presented a barrier, on either side of which the current swept with speed and fury, though, as it seemed, entirely unopposed by rocks. In such a current, as Roland thought, there was nothing unusually formidable; a daring swimmer might easily make his way to the island opposite, where, if difficulties were presented by the second channel, he might as easily find shelter from enemies firing on him from the banks. He gazed again on the island, which, viewed in the gloom, revealed to his eyes only a mass of shadowy boughs, resting in peace and security. His heart beat high with hope, and he was beginning to debate the chances of success in an attempt to swim his party across the channel on the horses, when a flash of lightning, brighter than usual, disclosed the fancied island a cluster of shaking tree-tops, whose trunks as well as the soil that supported them, were buried fathoms deep in the flood. At the same moment, he heard coming on a gust that repelled and deadened for a time the louder tumult from the rocks above, other roaring sounds, indicating the existence of other rocky obstructions at the foot of the island, among which as he could now see, the same flash having shown him the strength of the current in the centre of the channel, the swimmer must be dashed, who failed to find footing on the island.

"We are imprisoned, indeed," he muttered, bitterly: "Heaven itself has deserted us."

As he uttered these repining words, stooping to dip the canteen with which he was provided, in the water, a little canoe, darting forward with a velocity that seemed produced by the combined strength of the current and the rower, shot suddenly among the rocks and bushes at the entrance of the ravine, wedging itself fast among them, and a human figure leaped from it to the shore. The soldier started back aghast, as if from a dweller of another world; but recovering his courage in an instant, and not doubting that he beheld in the unexpected visitor a Shawnee and foe, who had thus found means of assailing his party on the rear, he rushed upon the stranger with drawn sword, for he had laid his rifle aside, and taking him at a disadvantage, while stooping to drag the boat further ashore, he smote him such a blow over the head, as brought him instantly to the ground, a dead man to all appearance, since, while his body fell upon the earth, his head,—or at least a goodly portion of it, sliced away by the blow,—went skimming into the water.

"Die, dog!" said Roland, as he struck the blow; and not content with that, he clapped his foot on the victim's breast, to give him the coup-de-grace when, wonder of wonders, the supposed Shawnee and dead man opened his lips, and cried aloud, in good choice Salt-River English,—"'Tarnal death to you, white man! what are you after?"

It was the voice, the never-to-be-forgotten voice, of the captain of horse-thieves; and as Roland's sword dropped from his hand in the surprise, up rose Roaring Ralph himself, his eyes rolling, as Roland saw by a second flash of lightning, with thrice their usual obliquity, his left hand scratching among the locks of hair exposed by the blow of the sabre, which had carried off a huge slice of his hat, without doing other mischief, while his right brandished a rifle, which he handled as if about to repay the favour with interest. But the same flash that revealed his visage to the astonished soldier, disclosed also Roland's features to him, and he fairly yelled with joy at the sight. "'Tarnal death to me!" he roared, first leaping into the air and cracking' his heels together, then snatching at Roland's hand, which he clutched and twisted with the gripe of a bear, and then cracking his heels together again, "'tarnal death to me, sodger, but I know'd it war you war in a squabblification! I heard the cracking and the squeaking; "'Tarnal death to me!' says I, 'thar's Injuns!' And then I thought, and says I, '"Tarnal death to me, who are they after?' and then, 'tarnal death to me, it came over me like a strick of lightning, and says I, 'Tarnal death to me, but its anngelliferous madam that helped me out of the halter!' Strannger!" he roared, executing another demivolte, "h'yar am I, come to do anngelliferous madam's fighting ag'in all critturs human and inhuman, Christian and Injun, white, red, black, and party-coloured. Show me anngelliferous madam, and then show me the abbregynes; and if you ever seed fighting, 'tarnal death to me, but you'll say it war only the squabbling of seed-ticks and blue-bottle flies! I say, sodger, show me anngelliferous madam: you cut the halter, and you cut the tug; but it war madam the anngel that set you on: wharfo', I'm her dog and her niggur from now to etarnity, and I'm come to fight for her, and lick her enemies till you shall see nothing left of 'em but ha'rs and nails!"

Of these expressions, uttered with extreme volubility and the most extravagant gestures, Roland took no notice; his astonishment at the horse-thief's appearance was giving way to new thoughts and hopes, and he eagerly demanded of Ralph how he had got there.

"In the dug-out,"[9] said Ralph; "found her floating among the bushes, ax'd me out a flopper[10] with my tom-axe in no time, jumped in, thought of anngelliferous madam, and came down the falls like a cob in a corn-van—ar'n't I the leaping trout of the waters? Strannger, I don't want to sw'ar; but I reckon if there ar'n't hell up thar among the big stones, thar's hell no other whar all about Salt River! But I say, sodger, I came here not to talk nor cavort[11], but to show that I'm the man, Ralph Stackpole, to die dog for them that pats me. So, whar's anngelliferous madam? Let me see her, sodger, that I may feel wolfish when I jumps among the redskins; for I'm all for a fight, and thar ar'n't no run in me."

[Footnote 9: Dug-out—a canoe—because dug out or hollowed with the axe.]

[Footnote 10: Flopper—a flapper, a paddle.]

[Footnote 11: Cavort—to play pranks, to gasconade.]

"It is well, indeed, if it shall prove so," said Roland, not without bitterness; "for it is to you alone we owe all our misfortunes."

With these words, he led the way to the place, where, among the horses, concealed among brambles and stones, lay the unfortunate females, cowering on the bare earth. The pale sheets of lightning, flashing now with greater frequency, revealed them to Ralph's eyes, a ghastly and melancholy pair, whose situation and appearance were well fitted to move the feelings of a manly bosom; Edith lying almost insensible across Telie's knees, while the latter, weeping bitterly, yet seemed striving to forget her own distresses, while ministering to those of her companion.

"'Tarnal death to me!" cried Stackpole, looking upon Edith's pallid visage and rayless eyes with more emotion than would have been expected from his rude character, or than was expressed in his uncouth phrases, "if that don't make me eat a niggur, may I be tetotaciously chawed up myself! Oh, you anngelliferous madam! jist look up and say the word, for I'm now ready to mount a wild-cat: jist look up, and don't make a die of it, for thar's no occasion: for ar'n't I your niggur-slave, Ralph Stackpole? and ar'n't I come to lick all that's agin you, Mingo, Shawnee, Delaware, and all! Oh, you anngelliferous crittur! don't swound away, but look up, and see how I'll wallop 'em!"

And here the worthy horse-thief, seeing that his exhortations produced no effect upon the apparently dying Edith, dropped upon his knees, and began to blubber and lament over her, as if overcome by his feelings, promising her a world of Indian scalps, and a whole Salt River full of Shawnee blood, if she would only look up and see how he went about it.

"Show your gratitude by actions, not by words," said Roland, who, whatever his cause for disliking the zealous Ralph, was not unrejoiced at his presence, as that of a valuable auxiliary: "rise up, and tell me, in the name of heaven, how you succeeded in reaching this place, and what hope there is of leaving it?"

But Ralph was too much afflicted by the wretched condition of Edith, whom his gratitude for the life she had bestowed had made the mistress paramount of his soul, to give much heed to any one but herself; and it was only by dint of hard questioning that Roland drew from him, little by little, an account of the causes which had kept him in the vicinity of the travellers, and finally brought him to the scene of combat.

It had been, it appeared, an eventful and unlucky day with the horse-thief, as well as the soldier. Aside from his adventure on the beech-tree, enough in all truth to mark the day for him with a black stone, he had been peculiarly unfortunate with the horses to which he had so unceremoniously helped himself. The gallant Briareus, after sundry trials of strength with his new master, had at last succeeded in throwing him from his back; and the two-year-old pony, after obeying him the whole day with the docility of a dog, even when the halter was round his neck, and carrying him in safety until within a few miles of Jackson's Station, had attempted the same exploit, and succeeded, galloping off on the back track towards his home. This second loss was the more intolerable, since Stackpole, having endured the penalty for stealing him, considered himself as having a legal, Lynch-like right to the animal, which no one could now dispute. He therefore returned in pursuit of the pony, until night arrested his footsteps on the banks of the river, which, the waters still rising, he did not care to cross in the dark. He had, therefore, built a fire by the road-side, intending to camp-out till morning.

"And it was your fire, then, that checked us?" cried Roland, at this part of the story,—"it was your light we took for the watch-fire of Indians?"

"Injuns you may say," quoth Stackpole, innocently, "for thar war a knot of 'em I seed sneaking over the ford; and jist as I was squinting a long aim at 'em, hoping I might smash two of 'em at alick, slam-bang goes a feller that had got behind me, 'tarnal death to him, and roused me out of my snuggery. Well, sodger, then I jumps into the cane, and next into the timber; for I reckoned all Injun creation war atter me. And so I sticks fast in a lick; and then to sumtotalise, I wallops down a rock, eend foremost, like a bull-toad: and, 'tarnal death to me, while I war scratching my head, and wondering whar I came from, I heerd the crack of the guns across the river, and thought of anngelliferous madam. 'Tarnal death to me, sodger, it turned me wrong side out! and while I war axing all natur' how I war to get over, what should I do but see the old sugar-trough floating in the bushes,—I seed her in a strick of lightning. So pops I in, and paddles I down, till I comes to the rocks,—and ar'n't they beauties? 'H'yar goes for grim death and massacreation,' says I, and tuck the shoot; and if I didn't fetch old dug-out through slicker than snakes, and faster than a well-greased thunderbolt, niggurs ar'n't niggurs, nor Injuns Injuns: and, strannger, if you axes me why, h'yar's the wharfo'—'twar because I thought of anngelliferous madam! Strannger, I am the gentleman to see her out of a fight; and so jist tell her thar's no occasion for being uneasy; for, 'tarnal death to me, I'll mount Shawnees, and die for her, jist like nothing."

"Wretch that you are," cried Roland, whose detestation of the unlucky cause of his troubles, revived by the discovery that it was to his presence at the ford they owed their last and most fatal disappointment, rendered him somewhat insensible to the good feelings and courage which had brought the grateful fellow to his assistance,—"you were born for our destruction; every way you have proved our ruin: but for you my poor kinswoman would have been now in safety among her friends. Had she left you hanging on the beech, you would not have been on the river, to cut off her only escape, when pursued close at hand by murderous savages."

The reproach, now for the first time acquainting Stackpole with the injury he had, though so unintentionally and innocently, inflicted upon his benefactress; and the sight of her, lying apparently half-dead at his feet, wrought up the feelings of the worthy horse-thief to a pitch of desperate compunction, mingled with fury.

"If I'm the crittur that holped her into the fix, I'm the crittur to holp her out of it. 'Tarnal death to me, whar's the Injuns? H'yar goes to eat 'em!"

With that, he uttered a yell,—the first human cry that had been uttered for some time, for the assailants were still resting on their arms,—and rushing up the ravine, as if well acquainted with the localities of the Station, he ran to the ruin, repeating his cries at every step, with a loudness and vigour of tone that soon drew a response from the lurking enemy.

"H'yar you 'tarnal-temporal, long-legged, 'tater-headed paint-faces!" he roared, leaping from the passage floor to the pile of ruins before the door of the hovel (where Emperor yet lay ensconced, and whither Roland followed him), as if in utter defiance of the foemen whom he hailed with such opprobrious epithets,—"h'yar you bald head, smoke-dried, punkin-eating red-skins! you half-niggurs! you 'coon-whelps! you snakes! you varmints! you raggamuffins what goes about licking women and children, and scar'ring-anngelliferous madam! git up and show your scalp-locks; for 'tarnal death to me, I'm the man to take 'em—cock-a-doodle-doo!"

And the valiant horse-thief concluded his warlike defiance with such a crow as might have struck consternation to the heart not merely of the best game-cock in Kentucky, but of the bird of Jove itself. Great was the excitement it produced among the warriors. A furious hubbub was heard to arise among them, followed by many wrathful voices exclaiming in broken English, with eager haste, "Know him dah! cuss' rascal! Cappin Stackpole!—steal Injun hoss!" And the' "steal Injun hoss!" iterated and reiterated by a dozen voices, and always with the most iracund emphasis, enabled Roland to form a proper conception of the sense in which his enemies held that offence, as well as of the great merits and wide-spread fame of his new ally, whose mere voice had thrown the red-men into such a ferment.

But it was not with words alone they vented their displeasure. Rifle-shots and execrations were discharged together against the notorious enemy of their pinfolds; who nothing daunted, and nothing loath, let fly his own "speechifier," as he denominated his rifle, in return, accompanying the salute with divers yells and maledictions, in which latter he showed himself, to say the truth, infinitely superior to his antagonists. He would even, so great and fervent was his desire to fight the battles of his benefactress to advantage, have retained his exposed stand on the pile of ruins, daring every bullet, had not Roland dragged him down by main force, and compelled him to seek a shelter like the rest, from which, however, he carried on the war, loading and firing his piece with wonderful rapidity, and yelling and roaring all the time with triumphant fury, as if reckoning upon every shot to bring down an enemy.

It was not many minutes, however, before Roland began to fear that the fatality which had marked all his relations with the intrepid horse-thief, had not yet lost its influence, and that Stackpole's present assistance was anything but advantageous to his cause. It seemed, indeed, as if the savages had been driven to increased rage by the discovery of his presence; and that the hope of capturing him, the most daring and inveterate of all the hungerers after Indian horseflesh, and requiting his manifold transgressions on the spot, had infused into them new spirit and fiercer determination. Their fire became more vigorous, their shouts more wild and ferocious: those who had effected a lodgment among the ruins crept higher, while others appeared dealing their shots from other quarters close at hand; and in fine, the situation of his little party became so precarious, that Roland, apprehending every moment a general assault, and despairing of being again able to repel it, drew them secretly off from the ruin, which he abandoned entirely, and took refuge among the rocks at the head of the ravine.

It was then,—while unconscious of the sudden evacuation of the hovel, but not doubting they had driven the defenders into its interior, tho enemy poured in half a dozen or more volleys, as preliminaries to the assault which the soldier apprehended,—that he turned to the unlucky Ralph; and arresting him as he was about to fire upon the foe from his new cover, demanded, with much agitation, if it were not possible to transport the hapless females in the little canoe, which his mind had often reverted to as a probable means of escape, to a place of safety.

"'Tarnal death to me," said Ralph, "thar's a boiling-pot above and a boiling pot below; but ar'n't I the crittur to shake old Salt by the fo'-paw? Can take anngelliferous down 'ar a shoot that war ever seed!"

"And why, in Heaven's name," cried the Virginian, "did you not say so before, and relieve her from this horrible situation?"

"'Tarnal death to me, ar'nt I to do her fighting first?" demanded the honest Ralph. "Jist let's have another crack at the villians, jist for madam's satisfaction; and then, sodger, if you're for taking the shoot, I'm jist the salmon to show you the way. But I say, sodger, I won't lie," he continued, finding Roland was bent upon instant escape, while the savages were yet unaware of their flight from the hovel,—"I wont lie, sodger;—thar's rather a small trough to hold madam and the gal, and me and you and the nigger and the white man" (for Stackpole was already acquainted with the number of the party); "and as for the hosses, 'twill be all crucifixion to get 'em through old Salt's fingers."

"Think not of horses, nor of us," said Roland. "Save but the women, and it will be enough. For the rest of us, we will do our best. We can keep the hollow till we are relieved; for, if Nathan be alive, relief must be now on the way." And in a few hurried words, he acquainted Stackpole with his having despatched the man of peace to seek assistance.

"Thar's no trusting the crittur, Tiger Nathan," said Ralph; "though at a close hug, a squeeze on the small ribs, or a kick up of heels, he's all splendiferous. Afore you see his ugly pictur' ag'in, 'tarnal death to me, strannger, you'll be devoured; the red niggurs thar won't make two bites at you. No, sodger,—if we run, we run,—thar's the principle; we takes the water, the whole herd together, niggurs, hosses, and all, particularly the hosses; for, 'tarnal death to me, it's ag'in my conscience to leave so much as a hoof. And so, sodger, if you conscientiously thinks thar has been walloping enough done on both sides, I'm jist the man to help you all out of the bobbery;—though, cuss me, you might as well have cut me out of the beech without so much hard axing!"

These words of the worthy horse-thief, uttered as hurriedly as his own, but far more coolly, animated the spirits of the young soldier with double hope; and taking advantage of the busy intentness with which the enemy still poured their fire into the ruin, he despatched Ralph down the ravine, to prepare the canoe for the women, while he himself summoned Dodge and Emperor to make an effort for their own deliverance.



CHAPTER XVII.

The roar of the river, alternating with peals of thunder, which were now loud and frequent, awake many an anxious pang in Roland's bosom, as he lifted his half-unconscious kinswoman from the earth, and bore her to the canoe; but his anxiety was much more increased when he came to survey the little vessel itself, which was scarce twelve feet in length, and seemed ill-fitted to sustain the weight of even half the party. It was, besides, of the clumsiest and worst possible figure, a mere log, in fact, roughly hollowed out, without any attempt having been made to point its extremities; so that it looked less like a canoe than an ox-trough; which latter purpose it was perhaps designed chiefly to serve, and intended to be used for the former only when an occasional rise of the waters might make a canoe necessary to the convenience of the maker. Such a vessel, managed by a skilful hand, might indeed bear the two females, with honest Ralph, through the foaming rapids below; but Roland felt, that to burden it with others would be to insure the destruction of all. He resolved, therefore, that no other should enter it; and, having deposited Telie Doe in it by the side of Edith, he directed Dodge and Emperor to mount their horses, and trust to their strength and courage for a safe escape. To Emperor, whatever distaste he might have for the adventure, this was an order, like all others, to be obeyed without murmuring; and, fortunately, Pardon Dodge's humanity, or his discretion, was so strongly fortified by his confidence in the swimming virtues of his steed, that he very readily agreed to try his fortune on horseback.

"Anything to git round them everlasting varmint,—though it a'n't no sich great circumstance to fight 'em neither, where one's a kinder got one's hand in," he cried, with quite a joyous voice; and added, as if to encourage the others,—"it's my idea, that, if such an old crazy boat can swim the river, a hoss can do it a mortal heap better."

"'Tarnal death to me," said Ralph Stackpole, "them's got the grit that'll go down old Salt on horseback! But it's all for the good of anngelliferous madam: and so, if thar's any hard rubbing, or drowning, or anything-of that synommous natur', to happen, it ar'n't a thing to be holped no how. But hand in the guns and speechifiers, and make ready for a go; for, 'tarnal death to me, the abbrygynes ar' making a rush for the cabin!"

There was indeed little time left for deliberation. While Ralph was yet speaking, a dozen or more flaming brands were suddenly seen flung into the air, as if against the broken roof of the cabin, through which they fell into the interior; and, with a tremendous whoop, the savages, thus lighting the way to the assault, rushed against their fancied prey. The next moment, there was heard a yell of disappointed rage and wonder, followed by a rush of men into the ravine.

"Now, sodger," cried Ralph, "stick close to the trough; and if you ever seed etarnity at midnight, you'll see a small sample now!"

With that, he pushed the canoe into the stream, and Roland, urging his terrified steed with voice and spur, and leading his cousin's equally alarmed palfrey, leaped in after him, calling to Dodge and Emperor to follow. But how they followed, or whether they followed at all, it was not easy at that moment to determine; for a bright flash of lightning, glaring over the river, vanished suddenly, leaving all in double darkness, and the impetuous rush of the current whirled him he knew not whither; while the crash of the thunder that followed, prevented his hearing any other noise, save the increasing and never absent roar of the waters. Another flash illuminated the scene, and during its short-lived radiance he perceived himself flying, as it almost seemed, through the water, borne along by a furious current betwixt what appeared to him two lofty walls of crag and forest, towards those obstructions in the channel, which, in times of flood, converted the whole river into a boiling caldron. They were masses of rock, among which had lodged rafts of drift timber, forming a dam or barrier on either side of the river, from which the descending floods were whirled into a central channel, ample enough in the dry season to discharge the waters in quiet, but through which they were now driven with all the hurry and rage of a torrent. The scene, viewed in the momentary glare of the lightning, was indeed terrific: the dark and rugged walls on either side, the ramparts of timber of every shape and size, from the little willow sapling to the full-grown sycamore piled high above the rocks, and the rushing gulf betwixt them, made up a spectacle sufficient to appal the stoutest heart; and Roland gasped for breath, as he beheld the little canoe whirl into the narrow chasm, and then vanish, even before the light was over, as if swallowed up in its boiling vortex.

But there was little time for fear or conjecture. He cast the rein of the palfrey from his hand, directed Briareus's head towards the abyss, and the next moment, sweeping in darkness and with the speed of an arrow, betwixt the barriers, he felt his charger swimming beneath him in comparatively tranquil waters. Another flash illumined hill and river, and he beheld the little canoe dancing along in safety, scarce fifty yards in advance, with Stackpole waving the tattered fragments of his hat aloft, and yelling out a note of triumph. But the lusty hurrah was unheard by the soldier. A more dreadful sound came to his ears from behind, in a shriek that seemed uttered by the combined voices of men and horses, and was heard even above the din of the torrent. But it was as momentary as dreadful, and if a cry of agony, it was of agony that was soon over. Its fatal cause was soon exhibited, when Roland, awakened by the sound from the trance, which, during the brief moment of his passage through the abyss, had chained his faculties, turned, by a violent jerk, the head of his charger up the stream, in the instinctive effort to render assistance to his less fortunate followers. A fainter flash than before played upon the waters, and he beheld two or three dark masses, like the bodies of horses, hurried by among the waves, whilst another, of lesser bulk and human form, suddenly rose from the depth of the stream at his side. This he instantly grasped in his hand, and dragged half across his saddle-bow, when a broken, strangling exclamation, "Lorra-g-g-gor!" made him aware that he had saved the life of the faithful Emperor. "Clutch fast to the saddle," he cried; and the negro obeying with another ejaculation, the soldier turned Briareus again down the stream, to look for the canoe. But almost immediately his charger struck the ground; and Roland, to his inexpressible joy, found himself landed upon a projecting bank, on which the current had already swept the canoe, with its precious freight, unharmed.

"If that ar'n't equal to coming down a strick of lightning," cried Roaring Ralph, as he helped the soldier from the water, "thar's no legs to a jumping bull-frog! Smash away, old bait!" he continued, apostrophising with great exultation and self-admiration the river whose terrors he had thus so successfully defied; "ar'n't I the gentleman for you? Roar as much as you please;—when it comes to fighting for anngelliferous madam, I can lick you, old Salt, 'tarnal death to me! And so, anngelliferous madam, don't you car' a copper for the old crittur; for thar's more in his bark than his bite. And as for the abbregynes, if I've fout 'em enough for your satisfaction, we'll just say good-bye to 'em, and leave 'em to take the scalp off old Salt."

The consolation thus offered by the worthy captain of horse-thieves was lost upon Edith, who, locked in the arms of her kinsman, and sensible of her escape from the horrid danger that had so long surrounded her, sensible also of the peril from which he had just been released, wept her terrors away upon his breast, and for a moment almost forgot that her sufferings were not yet over.

It was only for an instant that the young soldier indulged his joy. He breathed a few words of comfort and encouragement, and then turned to inquire after Dodge, whose gallant hearing in the hour of danger had conquered the disgust he at first felt at his cowardice, and won upon his gratitude and respect. But the Yankee appeared not, and the loud calls Roland made for him were echoed only by the hoarse roar from the barriers, now left far behind, and the thunder that yet pealed through the sky. Nor could Emperor, when restored a little to his wits, which had been greatly disturbed by his own perils in the river, give any satisfactory account of his fate. He could only remember that the current had borne himself against the logs, under which he had been swept, and whirled he knew not whither until he found himself in the arms of his master; and Dodge, who had rushed before him into the flood, he supposed, had met a similar fate, but without the happy termination that marked his own.

That the Yankee had indeed found his death among the roaring waters, Roland could well believe, the wonder only being how the rest had escaped in safety. Of the five horses, three only had reached the bank, Briareus and the palfrey, which had fortunately followed Roland down the middle of the chasm, and the horse of the unlucky Pardon. The others had been either drowned among the logs, or swept down the stream.

A few moments sufficed to acquaint Roland with several losses; but he took little time to lament them. The deliverance of his party was not yet wholly effected, and every moment was to be improved, to put it, before daylight, beyond the reach of pursuit. The captain of horse-thieves avouched himself able to lead the way from the wilderness, to conduct the travellers to a safe ford below, and thence through the woods, to the rendezvous of the emigrants.

"Let it be anywhere," said Roland, "where there is safety; and let us not delay a moment longer. Our remaining here can avail nothing to poor Dodge."

With these words, he assisted his kinswoman upon her palfrey, placed Telie Doe upon the horse of the unfortunate Yankee, and giving up his own Briareus to the exhausted negro, prepared to resume his ill-starred journey on foot. Then, taking post on the rear, he gave the signal to his new guide; and once more the travellers were buried in the intricacies of the forest.



CHAPTER XVIII.

It was at a critical period when the travellers effected their escape from the scene of their late sufferings. The morning was already drawing nigh, and might, but for the heavy clouds that prolonged the night of terror, have been seen shooting its first streaks through the eastern skies. Another half hour, if for that half hour they could have maintained their position in the ravine, would have seen them exposed in all their helplessness to the gaze, and to the fire of the determined foe. It became them to improve the few remaining moments of darkness, and to make such exertions as might get them, before dawn, beyond the reach of discovery or pursuit.

Exertions were, accordingly, made; and, although man and horse were alike exhausted, and the thick brakes and oozy swamps through which Roaring Ralph led the way, opposed a thousand obstructions to rapid motion, they had left the fatal ruin at least two miles behind them, or so honest Stackpole averred, when the day at last broke over the forest. To add to the satisfaction of the fugitives, it broke in unexpected splendour. The clouds parted, and, as the floating masses rolled lazily away before a pleasant morning breeze, they were seen lighted up and tinted with a thousand glorious dyes of sunshine.

The appearance of the great luminary was hailed with joy, as the omen of a happier fate than had been heralded by the clouds and storms of evening. Smiles began to beam from the haggard and care-worn visages of the travellers; the very horses seemed to feel the inspiring influence of the change; and as for Roaring Ralph, the sight of his beautiful benefactress recovering her good looks, and the exulting consciousness that it was his hand which had snatched her from misery and death, produced such a fever of delight in his brain as was only to be allayed by the most extravagant expressions and actions. He assured her a dozen times over, "he was her dog and her slave, and vowed he would hunt her so many Injun scalps, and steal her such a 'tarnal chance of Shawnee hosses, thar shorld'nt be a gal in all Kentucky should come up to her for stock and glory:" and, finally, not content with making a thousand other promises of an equally extravagant character, and swearing, that, "if she axed it, he would go down on his knees and say his prayers to her," he offered, as soon as he had carried her safely across the river, to "take the backtrack, and lick, single-handed, all the Injun abbregynes that might be following." Indeed, to such a pitch did his enthusiasm run, that, not knowing how otherwise to give vent to his over-charged feelings, he suddenly turned upon his heel, and shaking his fist in the direction whence he had come, as if against the enemy who had caused his benefactress so much distress, he pronounced a formal and emphatic curse upon their whole race, "from the head-chief to the commoner, from the whisky-soaking warrior down to the pan-licking squall-a-baby," all of whom he anathematised with as much originality as fervour of expression; after which, he proceeded, with more sedateness, to resume his post at the head of the travellers, and conduct them onwards on their way.

Another hour was now consumed in diving amid cane-brakes and swamps, to which Roaring Ralph evinced a decidedly greater partiality than to the open forest, in which the travellers had found themselves at the dawn; and in this he seemed to show somewhat more of judgment and discretion than would have been argued from his hair-brained conversation; for the danger of stumbling upon scouting Indians, of which the country now seemed so full, was manifestly greater in the open woods than in the dark and almost unfrequented cane-brakes: and the worthy horse-thief, with all his apparent love of fight, was not at all anxious that the angel of his worship should be alarmed or endangered, while entrusted to his zealous safe-keeping.

But it happened in this case, as it has happened with better and wiser men, that Stackpole's cunning over-reached itself, as was fully shown in the event; and it would have been happier for himself and all if his discretion, instead of plunging him among difficult and almost impassable bogs, where a precious hour was wasted in effecting a mere temporary security and concealment from observation, had taught him the necessity of pushing onwards with all possible speed, so as to leave pursuers, if pursuit should be attempted, far behind. At the expiration of that hour, so injudiciously wasted, the fugitives issued from the brake, and stepping into a narrow path worn by the feet of bisons, among stunted shrubs and parched grasses, along the face of a lime-stone bed, sparingly scattered over with a similar barren growth, began to wind their way downward into a hollow vale, in which they could hear the murmurs, and perceive the glimmering waters of the river over which they seemed never destined to pass.

"Thar', 'tarnal death to me!" roared Ralph, pointing downwards with triumph, "arn't that old Salt now, looking as sweet and liquorish as a whole trough-full of sugar-tree? We'll just take a dip at him, anngelliferous madam, jist to wash the mud off our shoes; and then, 'tarnal death to me, farewell to old Salt, and the abbregynes together—cock-a-doodle-doo!"

With this comfortable assurance, and such encouragement as he could convey in the lustiest gallicantation ever fetched from lungs of man or fowl, the worthy Stackpole, who had slackened his steps, but without stopping while he spoke, turned his face again to the descent; when—as if that war-cry had conjured up enemies from the very air,—a rifle bullet, shot from a bush not six yards off, suddenly whizzed through his hair, scattering a handful of it to the winds; and while a dozen or more were, at the same instant, poured upon other members of the unfortunate party, fourteen or fifteen savages rushed out from their concealment among the grass and bushes, three of whom seized upon the rein of the unhappy Edith, while twice as many sprang upon Captain Forrester, and, before he could raise an arm in defence, bore him to the earth, a victim or a prisoner.

So much the astounded horse-thief saw with his own eyes; but before he could make good any of the numberless promises he had volunteered, during the morning journey, of killing and eating the whole family of North American Indians, or exemplify the unutterable gratitude and devotion he had as often professed to the fair Virginian, four brawny barbarians, one of them rising at his side and from the very bush whence the bullet had been discharged at his head, rushed against him, flourishing their guns and knives, and yelling with transport, "Got you now, Cappin Stackpole, steal-hoss! No go steal no hoss no more! roast on great big fire!"

"'Tarnal death to me!" roared Stackpole, forgetting everything else in the instinct of self-preservation; and firing his piece at the nearest enemy, he suddenly leaped from the path into the bushes on its lower side, where was a precipitous descent, down which he went rolling and crashing with a velocity almost equal to that of the bullets that were sent after him. Three of the four assailants immediately darted after in pursuit, and their shouts growing fainter and fainter as they descended, were mingled with the loud yell of victory, now uttered by a dozen savage voices from the hill-side.

It was a victory, indeed, in every sense, complete, almost bloodless, as it seemed, to the assailants, and effected at a moment when the hopes of the travellers were at the highest: and so sudden was the attack, so instantaneous the change from freedom to captivity, so like the juggling transition of a dream the whole catastrophe, that Forrester, although overthrown and bleeding from two several wounds received at the first fire, and wholly in the power of his enemies, who flourished their knives and axes in his face, yelling with exultation, could scarce appreciate his situation, or understand what dreadful misadventure had happened, until his eye, wandering among the dusky arms that grappled him, fell first upon the body of the negro Emperor, hard by, gored by numberless wounds, and trampled by the feet of his slayers, and then upon the apparition, a thousand times more dismal to his eyes, of his kinswoman snatched from her horse and struggling in the arms of her savage captors. The frenzy with which he was seized at this lamentable sight endowed him with a giant's strength; but it was exerted in vain to free himself from his enemies, all of whom seemed to experience a barbarous delight at his struggles, some encouraging him, with loud laughter and in broken English, to continue them, while others taunted and scolded at him more like shrewish squaws than valiant warriors, assuring him that they were great Shawnee fighting-men, and he a little Long-knife dog, entirely beneath their notice: which expressions, though at variance with all his preconceived notions of the stern gravity of the Indian character, and rather indicative of a roughly jocose than a darkly ferocious spirit, did not prevent their taking the surest means to quiet his exertions and secure their prize, by tying his hands behind him with a thong of buffalo hide, drawn so tight as to inflict the most excruciating pain. But pain of body was then, and for many moments after, lost in agony of mind, which could he conceived only by him who, like the young soldier, has been doomed, once in his life, to see a tender female, the nearest and dearest object of his affections, in the hands of enemies, the most heartless, merciless, and brutal of all the races of men. He saw her pale visage convulsed with terror and despair,—he beheld her arms stretched towards him, as if beseeching the help he no longer had the power to render,—and expected every instant the fall of the hatchet, or the flash of the knife, that was to pour her blood upon the earth before him. He would have called upon the wretches around for pity, but his tongue clove to his mouth, his brain spun round; and such became the intensity of his feelings, that he was suddenly bereft of sense, and fell like a dead man to the earth, where he lay for a time, ignorant of all events passing around, ignorant also of the duration of his insensibility.



CHAPTER XIX.

When the soldier recovered his senses, it was to wonder again at the change that had come over the scene. The loud yells, the bitter taunts, the mocking laughs, were heard no more; and nothing broke the silence of the wilderness save the stir of the leaf in the breeze, and the ripple of the river against its pebbly banks below. He glanced a moment from the bush in which he was lying, in search of the barbarians who had lately covered the slope of the hill, but all had vanished; captor and captive had alike fled; and the sparrow twittering among the stunted bushes, and the grasshopper singing in the grass, were the only living objects to be seen. The thong was still upon his wrists, and as he felt it rankling in his flesh, he almost believed that his savage captors, with a refinement in cruelty the more remarkable as it must have robbed them of the sight of his dying agonies, had left him thus bound and wounded, to perish miserably in the wilderness alone.

This suspicion was, however, soon driven from his mind; for making an effort to rise to his feet, he found himself suddenly withheld by a powerful grasp, while a guttural voice muttered in his ear from behind, with accents half angry, half exultant,—"Long-knife no move;—see how Piankeshaw kill Long-knife's brudders!—Piankeshaw great fighting-man!" He turned his face with difficulty, and saw, crouching among the leaves behind him, a grim old warrior plentifully bedaubed over head and breast with the scarlet clay of his native Wabash, his dark shining eyes bent now upon his rifle which he held extended over Roland's body, now turned upon Roland himself, whom he seemed to watch over with a miser's, or a wild-cat's, affection, and now wandering away up the stony path along the hill-side, as if in expectation of the coming of an object dearer even than rifle or captive to his imagination.

In the confused and distracted state of his mind, Roland was as little able to understand the expressions of the warrior as to account for the disappearance of his murderous associates; and he would have marvelled for what purpose he was thus concealed, among the bushes with his grim companion, had not his whole soul been too busily and painfully occupied with the thoughts of his vanished Edith. He strove to ask the wild barbarian of her fate, but the latter motioned him fiercely to keep silence; and the motion and the savage look that accompanied it being disregarded, the Indian drew a long knife from his belt, and pressing the point on Roland's throat, muttered too sternly and emphatically to be misconceived,—"Long-knife speak, Long-knife die! Piankeshaw fight Long-knife's brudders—Piankeshaw great fighting-man!" from which all that Roland could understand was that there was mischief of some kind still in the wind, and that he was commanded to preserve silence on the peril of his life. What that mischief could be he was unable to divine; but he was not kept long in ignorance.

As he lay upon the ground, his cheek pillowed upon it stone which accident, or perhaps the humanity of the old warrior, had placed under his head, he could distinguish a hollow, pattering, distant sound, in which, at first mistaken for the murmuring of the river over some rocky ledge, and then for the clatter of wild beasts approaching over the rocky hill, his practised ear soon detected the trampling of a body of horse, evidently winding their way along the stony road which had conducted him to captivity, and from which he was but a few paces removed. His heart thrilled within him. Was it, could it be, a band of gallant Kentuckians, in pursuit of the bold marauders, whose presence in the neighbourhood of the settlements had been already made known? or could they be (the thrill of expectation grew to transport, as he thought it) his fellow emigrants, summoned by the faithful Nathan to his assistance, and now straining every nerve to overtake the savages, whom they had tracked from the deserted ruin? He could now account for the disappearance of his captors, and the deathlike silence that surrounded him. Too vigilant to be taken at unawares, and perhaps long since apprised of the coming of the band, the Indians had resumed their hiding-places in the grass and among the bushes, preparing for the new-comers an ambuscade similar to that they had so successfully practised against Roland's unfortunate party. "Let them hide as they will, detestable miscreants," he uttered to himself with feelings of vindictive triumph; "they will not, this time, have frightened women and a handful of dispirited fugitives to deal with."

With these feelings burning in his bosom, he made an effort to turn his face towards the top of the hill, that he might catch the first sight of the friendly band, and glut his eyes with the view of the anticipated speedy discomfiture and destruction of his enemies. In this effort he received unexpected aid from the old warrior, who, perceiving his intention, pulled him round with his own hands, telling him, with the grim complacency of one who desired a witness to his bravery, "Now, you hold still, you see,—you see Piankeshaw old Injun,—you see Piankeshaw kill man, take scalp, kill all Long-knife:—debbil great fighting-man, old Piankeshaw!" which self-admiring assurance, repeated for the third time, the warrior pronounced with extreme earnestness and emphasis.

It was now that Roland could distinctly perceive the nature of the ground on which his captors had formed their ambush. The hill along whose side the bison path went winding down to the river with an easy descent, was nearly bare of trees, its barren soil affording nourishment only for a coarse grass, enamelled with asters and other brilliant flowers, and for a few stunted cedar-bushes, scattered here and there; while, in many places, the naked rock, broken into ledges and gullies, the beds of occasional brooks, was seen gleaming gray and desolate in the sunshine. Its surface being thus broken, was unfit for the operations of cavalry; and the savages being posted, as Roland judged from the position of the old Piankeshaw, midway along the descent, where were but few trees of sufficient magnitude to serve as a cover to assailants, while they themselves were concealed behind rocks and bushes, there was little doubt they could inflict loss upon an advancing body of footmen of equal numbers, and perhaps repel them altogether. But, Roland, now impressed with the belief that the approaching horsemen, whose trampling grew heavier each moment, as if they were advancing at a full trot, composed the flower of his own band, had but little fear of the result of a contest. He did not doubt they would outnumber the savages, who, he thought, could not muster more than fifteen or sixteen guns; and coming from a Station, which he had been taught to believe was of no mean strength it was more than probable their numbers had been reinforced by a detachment from its garrison.

Such were his thoughts, such were his hopes, as the party drew yet nigher, the sound of their hoofs clattering at last on the ridge of the hill; but his disappointment may be imagined, when, as they burst at last on his sight, emerging from the woods above, the gallant party dwindled suddenly into a troop of young men, only eleven in number, who rattled along the path in greater haste than order, as if dreaming of anything in the world but the proximity of an enemy. The leader he recognised at a glance by his tall figure, as Tom Bruce the younger, whose feats of Regulation the previous day had produced a strong though indirect influence on his own fortunes; and the ten lusty youths who followed his heels, he doubted not, made up the limbs and body of that inquisitorial court which, under him as its head, had dispensed so liberal an allowance of border law to honest Ralph Stackpole. That they were now travelling on duty of a similar kind, he was strongly inclined to believe; but the appearance of their horses, covered with foam, as if they had ridden far and fast, their rifles held in readiness in both hands, as if in momentary expectation of being called on to use them, with an occasional gesture from their youthful leader, who seemed to encourage them to greater speed, convinced him they were bent upon more serious business, perhaps in pursuit of the Indians, with whose marauding visitation some accident had made them acquainted.