"But the emigrants, my friends? they are yet nigh at hand—"

"Truly," said Nathan, "thee is mistaken. The news of the Injuns, that brought friend Thomas the younger into the woods, did greatly dismay them, as the young men reported; and, truly, they did resolve to delay their journey no longer, but start again before the break of day, that they might the sooner reach the Falls, and be in safety with their wives and little ones. There is no help for thee. Thee and me is alone in the wilderness, and there is no friend with us. Leave wringing thee hands, for it can do thee no good."

"I am indeed friendless, and there is no hope," said Roland, with the accents of despair; "while we seek assistance, and seek it vainly, Edith is lost,—lost for ever! Would that we had perished together! Hapless Edith! wretched Edith!—Was ever wretch so miserable as I?"

With such expressions, the young man gave a loose to his feelings, and Nathan surveyed, first with surprise and then with a kind of gloomy indignation, but never, as it seemed, with anything like sympathy, the extravagance of his grief.

"Thee is but a madman!" he exclaimed at last, and with a tone of severity that arrested Roland's attention: "does thee curse thee fate, and the Providence that is above thee, because the maid of thee heart is carried into captivity unharmed? Is thee wretched, because thee eyes did not see the Injun axe struck into her brain? Friend, thee does not know what such a sight is; but I do—yes, I have looked upon such a thing, and I will tell thee what it is; for it is good thee should know. Look, friend," he continued, grasping Roland by the arm, as if to command his attention, and surveying him with a look both wild and mournful, "thee sees a man before thee who was once as young and as happy as thee,—yea, friend, happier, for I had many around me to love me,—the children of my body, the wife of my bosom, the mother that gave me birth. Thee did talk of such things to me in the wood,—thee did mention them one and all,—wife, parent, and child! Such things had I; and men spoke well of me—But thee sees what I am! There is none of them remaining,—none only but me; and thee sees me what I am! Ten years ago I was another man,—a poor man, friend, but one that was happy. I dwelt upon the frontiers of Bedford—thee may not know the place; it is among the mountains of Pennsylvania, and far away. There was the house that I did build me; and in it there was all that I held dear, 'my gray old mother,'—(that's the way thee did call her, when thee spoke of her in the wood!)—'the wife of my bosom,' and 'the child of my heart,'—the children, friend,—for there was five of them, sons and daughters together,—little innocent babes that had done no wrong; and, truly, I loved them well. Well, friend, the Injuns came around us: for being bold, because of my faith that made me a man of peace and the friend of all men, I sat me down far on the border. But the Shawnees came upon me, and came as men of war, and their hands were red with the blood of my neighbours, and they raised them against my little infants. Thee asked me in the wood, what I would do in such case, having arms in my hand? Friend, I had arms in my hand, at that moment,—a gun that had shot me the beasts of the mountain for food, and a knife that had pierced the throats of bears in their dens. I gave them to the Shawnee chief, that he might know I was a friend.—Friend! if thee asks me now for my children, I can tell thee—With my own knife he struck down my eldest boy! with my own gun he slew the mother of my children!—If thee should live till thee is gray, thee will never see the sight I saw that day! When thee has children that Injuns murder, as thee stands by,—a wife that clasps thee legs in the writhing of death,—her blood, spouting up to thee bosom, where she has slept,—an old mother calling thee to help her in the death-struggle:—then, friend, then thee may see—then thee may know—then thee may feel—then thee may call theeself wretched, for thee will be so! Here was my little boy,—does thee see? there his two sisters—thee understands?—there—Thee may think I would have snatched a weapon to help them then! Well, thee is right:—but it was too late!—All murdered, friend!—all—all,—all cruelly murdered!"

It is impossible to convey an idea of the extraordinary vehemence, the wild accents, the frantic looks, with which Nathan ended the horrid story, into which he had been betrayed by his repining companion. His struggles to subdue the passions that the dreadful recollections of a whole family's butchery awoke in his bosom, only served to add double distortion to his changes of countenance, which, a better index of the convulsion within than were his broken, incoherent, half-inarticulate words, assumed at last an appearance so wild, so hideous, so truly terrific, that Roland was seized with horror, deeming himself confronted with a raging maniac. He raised his hand to remove that of Nathan, which still clutched his arm, and clutched it with painful force; but while in the act, the fingers relaxed of themselves, and Nathan dropped suddenly to the earth, as if struck down by a thunderbolt, his mouth foaming, his eyes distorted, his hands clenched, his body convulsed,—in short, exhibiting every proof of an epileptic fit, brought on by overpowering agitation of mind. As he fell, little Peter sprang to his side, and throwing his paws on his unconscious master's breast, stood over him as if to protect him, growling at Roland; who, though greatly shocked at the catastrophe, did not hesitate to offer such relief as was in his power. Disregarding the menace of the dog, which seemed at last to understand the purpose was friendly, he raised Nathan's head upon his knee, loosened the neckcloth that bound his throat, and sprinkled his face with water from the spring. While thus engaged, the cap of the sufferer fell from his head, and Roland saw that Nathan carried with him a better cause for the affliction than could be referred to any mere temporary emotion, however overwhelming to the mind. A horrible scar disfigured the top of his head, which seemed to have been, many years before, crushed by the blows of a heavy weapon; and it was equally manifest that the savage scalping-knife had done its work on the mangled head.

The soldier had heard that injuries to the head often resulted in insanity of some species or other; he could now speculate, on better grounds, and with better reason, upon some of those singular points of character which seemed to distinguish the houseless Nathan from the rest of his fellow-men.



CHAPTER XXIV.

The convulsion was but momentary, and departed with almost the same suddenness that marked its accession. Nathan started half up, looked wildly around him, surveying the bodies of the two Piankeshaws, and the visage of the sympathising soldier. Then snatching up and replacing his hat with one hand, and grasping Roland's with the other, he exclaimed, as if wholly unconscious of what had happened him,—

"Thee has heard it, and thee knows it,—thee knows what the Shawnees have done to me—they have killed them all, all that was of my blood! Had they done so by thee, friend," he demanded with eagerness, "had they done so by thee, what would thee have done to them?"

"Declared eternal war upon them and their accursed race!" cried Roland, greatly excited by the story; "I would have sworn undying vengeance, and I would have sought it,—ay, sought it without ceasing. Day and night, summer and winter, on the frontier and in their own lands and villages, I would have pursued the wretches, and pursued them to the death."

"Thee is right," cried Nathan, wringing the hand he still held, and speaking with a grin of hideous approval;—"by night and by day, in summer and in winter, in the wood and in the wigwam, thee would seek for their blood, and thee would shed it;—thee would think of thee wife and thee little babes, and thee heart would be as stone and fire within thee—thee would kill, friend, thee would kill, thee would kill!" And the monosyllable was breathed over and over again with a ferocity of emphasis that showed how deep and vindictive was the passion in the speaker's mind. Then,—with a transition of feeling as unexpected as it was abrupt, he added, still wringing Roland's hand, as if he had found in him a sympathizing friend, whose further kindness he was resolved to deserve, and to repay,—"Thee is right; I have thought about what thee has said—Thee shall have assistance. Thee is a brave man, and thee has not mocked at me because of my faith. Thee enemies shall be pursued, and the maid thee loves shall be restored to thee arms."

"Alas," said Roland, almost fearing from the impetuosity, as well as confidence, with which Nathan now spoke, that his wits were in a state of distraction, "where shall we look for help, since there are none but ourselves in this desert, of whom to ask it?"

"From our two selves it must come, and from none others," said Nathan, briskly. "We will follow the murdering thieves that have robbed thee of thee treasure, and we will recover the maid Edith from their hands."

"What! unaided? alone?"

"Alone, friend, with little Peter to be our guide, and Providence our hope and our stay. Thee is a man of courage, and thee heart will not fail thee, even if thee should find theeself led into the heart of the Injun nation. I have thought of this thing, friend, and I perceive there is good hope we shall prevail, and prevail better than if we had an hundred men to follow at our backs; unless we had them ready with us, to march this very day. Does thee hear me, friend? The Shawnee fighting-men are now in Kentucky, assembled in a great army, scalping and murdering as they come: their villages are left to be guarded by women and children and old men no longer fit for war. Thee understands me? If thee waits till thee collects friends, thee will have to cut thee way with them through fighting-men returned to their villages before thee; if thee proceeds as thee is, thee has nothing to fear that thee cannot guard against with thee own cunning,—nothing to oppose thee that thee cannot conquer with thee own strength and courage."

"And how," cried Roland, too ardent of temper, too ready to snatch at any hope, to refuse his approbation to the enterprise, though its difficulties immediately crowded before his eyes, "how shall we follow a trail so long and cold? where shall we find arms? where—"

"Friend," said Nathan, interrupting him, "thee speaks without thought. For arms and ammunition, thee has thee choice among the spoils of these dead villains, thee captivators. For the trail, thee need think nothing of that: lost or found, thee may be certain it leads to the old Vulture's town on the Miami: there thee will find thee cousin, and thither I can lead thee."

"Let us go then, in Heaven's name," cried Roland, "and without further delay; every moment is precious."

"Thee speaks the truth; and if thee feels thee limbs strong enough—"

"They are nerved by hope; and while that remains, I will neither faint nor falter. Edith rescued, and one blow—one good blow struck at the villain that wrongs her;—then let them fail me, if Heaven wills it, and fail me for ever!"

Few more words were required to confirm Roland's approval of the project so boldly, and indeed, as it seemed, so judiciously advised by his companion. To seek assistance was, as Nathan had justly said, to cast away the opportunity which the absence of the warriors from their towns opened to his hopes,—an opportunity in which craft and stratagem might well obtain the success not to be won, at a later period, and after the return of the marauders, even by a band of armed men.

Turning to the corses that still lay on the couch of leaves where they expired, Nathan began with little ceremony, and none of the compunction that might have been expected, to rob them of their knives, guns, and ammunition, with which Roland, selecting weapons to his liking, was soon well armed. The pouches of the warriors, containing strips of dried venison and stores of parched corn, Nathan appropriated in the same way, taking care, from the superabundance, to reward the services of little Peter, who received with modest gratitude, but despatched with energetic haste, the meal which his appearance, as well as his appetite, showed was not a blessing of every-day occurrence.

These preparations concluded, Nathan signified his readiness to conduct the young soldier on his way. But as he stepped to the edge of the little glade, and turned to take a last look of the dead Indians, the victims of his own warlike hand, a change came over his appearance. The bold and manly look which he had for a moment assumed, was exchanged for an air of embarrassment and almost timidity, such as marked his visage of old, at the Station. He hesitated, paused, looked at the bodies again, and then at Roland; and finally muttered aloud, though with doubting accents,—

"Thee is a man of war, friend,—a man of war and a soldier! and thee fights Injuns even as the young men of Kentucky fights them; and thee may think it but right and proper, as they do, in such case made and provided, to take the scalps off the heads of these same dead vagabonds! Truly, friend, if thee is of that mind, truly, I won't oppose thee!"

"Their scalps? I scalp them!" cried Boland, with a soldier's disgust; "I am no butcher: I leave them to the bears and wolves, which the villains in their natures so strongly resembled. I will kill Indians wherever I can; but no scalping, Nathan, no scalping from me!"

"Truly, it is just as thee thinks proper," Nathan mumbled out; and without further remark he strode into the wood, following the path which the Piankeshaws had travelled the preceding evening, until, with Roland, he reached the spot where had happened the catastrophe of the keg,—a place but a few hundred paces distant from the glade. Along the whole way he had betrayed symptoms of dissatisfaction and uneasiness, for which Roland could not account; and now, having arrived at this spot, he came to a pause, and revealed the source of his trouble.

"Do thee sit down here and rest thee weary limbs, friend," he said. "Truly, I have left two Injun guns lying open to the day; and, truly, it doth afflict me to think so; for if other Injuns should chance upon this place, they must needs find them, and perhaps use them in killing poor white persons. Truly, I will hide them in a hollow tree, and return to thee in a minute."

With these words, he immediately retraced his path, leaving Roland to wonder and speculate at leisure over the singular intermixture of humane and ferocious elements of which his character seemed compounded. But the speculation was not long indulged; in a few moments Nathan's footsteps were heard ringing along the arched path, and he again made his appearance, but looking a new man. His gait was fierce and confident, his countenance bold and expressive of satisfaction. "Things should never be done by halves," he muttered, but more as if speaking to his own thoughts than to his companion.

With this brief apology, he again led the way through the forest; but not until Roland had observed, or thought he observed, a drop of blood fall from his tattered knife-sheath to the earth. But the suspicion that this little incident, coupled with the change in Nathan's deportment, awoke in Roland's mind, he had no leisure to pursue, Nathan now striding forward at a pace which soon brought his companion to a painful sense of his own enfeebled and suffering condition.

"Thee must neither faint nor flag," said Nathan; "thee enemies have the start of thee by a whole day; and they have thee horses also. Truly, it is my fear, that, with these horses and thee kinswoman, Abel Doe and the man Braxley, thee foeman, may push on for the Injun town with what speed they can, leaving their Injun thieves the footmen, to follow on as they may, or perhaps to strike through the woods for the north side, to join the ramping villains that are there burning and murdering! Thee must keep up thee strength till night-fall; when thee shall have good meat to eat and a long sleep to refresh thee; and, truly, on the morrow thee will be very well, though a little feverish."

With such encouragement, repeated time by time as seemed to him needful, Nathan continued to lead through wood and brake, with a vigour and freshness of step that moved the wonder and envy of Roland, who knew that, like himself, Nathan had been without sleep for two nights in succession; besides, having employed the intervening days in the most laborious exertions. Such an example of untiring energy and zeal, and the reflection that they were displayed in his cause—in the cause of his hapless Edith—supported Roland's own flagging steps; and he followed without murmuring, until the close of the day found him again on the banks of the river that had witnessed so many of his sufferings. He had been long aware that Nathan had deserted the path of the Piankeshaws; but not doubting his superior knowledge of the woods had led him into a shorter path, he was both surprised and concerned, when, striking the river at last, he found himself in a place entirely unknown, and apparently many miles below the scene of conflict of the previous day.

"He that would follow upon the heels of Wenonga," said Nathan, "must walk wide of his footsteps, for fear lest he should suddenly tread on the old reptile's tail. Thee don't know the craft of an old Injun that expects to be followed,—as, truly, it is like the Black-Vulture may expect it now. Do thee be content, friend; there is more paths to Wenonah's town than them that Wenonga follows; and, truly, we may gain something by taking the shortest."

Thus satisfying Roland he had good reasons for choosing his own path, Nathan led the way to the verge of the river; where, leaving the broad buffalo-trace by which he descended the banks, and diving through canes and rocks, until he had left the ford to which the path led, a quarter-mile or more behind, he stopped at last under a grim cliff overgrown with trees and brambles, where a cove or hollow in the rock, of a peculiarly wild, solitary, and defensible character, invited him to take up quarters for the night.

Nor did this seem the first time Wandering Nathan had sought shelter in the place, which possessed an additional advantage in a little spring that trickled from the rock, and collected its limpid stores in a rocky basin hard by; there were divers half-burned brands lying on its sandy floor, and a bed of fern and cane-leaves, not yet dispersed by the winds, that had evidently been once pressed by a human form.

"Thee will never see a true man of the woods," said Nathan, with much apparent self-approval, "build his camp-fire on a roadside, like that unlucky foolish man, Ralph Stackpole by name, that ferried thee down the river. Truly, it was a marvel he did not drown thee all, as well as the poor man Dodge! Here, friend, we can sleep in peace; and, truly, sleep will be good for thee, and me, and little Peter."

With these words, Nathan set about collecting dried logs and branches, which former floods had strown in great abundance along the rocks; and dragging them into the cove, he soon set them in a cheerful blaze. He then drew forth his stores of provender—the corn and dried meat he had taken from the Piankeshaws' pouches,—the latter of which, after a preliminary sop or two in the spring, for the double purpose of washing off the grains of gunpowder, tobacco, and what not, the usual scrapings of an Indian's pocket,—and of restoring its long vanished juices,—he spitted on twigs of cane, and roasted with exceeding patience and solicitude at the fire. To these dainty viands he added certain cakes and lumps of some nondescript substance, as Roland supposed it, until assured by Nathan it was good maple-sugar, and of his own making. "Truly," said he, "it might have been better, had it been better made. But, truly, friend, I am, as thee may see, a man that lives in the woods, having neither cabin nor wigwam, the Injuns having burned down the same, so that it is tedious to rebuild them; and having neither pots nor pans, the same having been all stolen, I did make my sugar in the wooden troughs, boiling it down with hot stones; and, truly, friend, it doth serve the purpose of salt, and is good against hunger in long journeys."

There was little in the dishes, set off by Nathan's cookery, or in his own feelings, to dispose the sick and weary soldier to eat; and having swallowed but a few mouthfuls, he threw himself upon the bed of leaves, hoping to find that refreshment in slumber which neither food nor the conversation of his companion could supply. His body being as much worn and exhausted as his mind, the latter was not doomed to be long tossed by grief and fear; and before the last hues of sunset had faded in the west, slumber had swept from his bosom the consciousness of his own sufferings, with even the memory of his Edith.

In the meanwhile, Nathan had gathered more wood to supply the fire during the night, and added a new stock of cane-leaves for his own bed; having made which to his liking, disposed his arms where they could be seized at a moment's warning, and, above all, accommodated little Peter with a couch at his feet, he also threw himself at length, and was soon sound asleep.



CHAPTER XXV.

The morning-star, peeping into the hollow den of the wanderers, was yet bright on the horizon, when Roland was roused from his slumbers by Nathan, who had already risen and prepared a hasty meal resembling in all respects that of the preceding evening. To this the soldier did better justice than to the other: for, although feeling sore and stiff in every limb, he experienced none of the feverish consequences Nathan had predicted from his wounds; and his mind, invigorated by so many hours of rest, was more tranquil and cheerful. The confidence Nathan seemed to feel in the reasonableness and practicability of their enterprise, however wild and daring it might have seemed to others, was his own best assurance of its success; and hope thus enkindled and growing with his growing strength, it required no laborious effort to summon the spirits necessary to sustain him during the coming trials.

This change for the better was not unnoticed by Nathan, who exhorted him to eat freely, as a necessary prelude to the labours of the day; and the rude meal being quickly and satisfactorily despatched, and little Peter receiving his due share, the companions, without further delay, seized their arms, and recommenced their journey. Crossing the river at the buffalo-ford above, and exchanging the road to which it led for wilder and lonelier paths traced by smaller animals, they made their way through the forest, travelling with considerable speed, which was increased, as the warmth of exercise gradually restored their native suppleness to the soldier's limbs.

And now it was, that, as the opening of a glorious dawn, flinging sunshine and life over the whole wilderness, infused still brighter hopes into his spirit, he began to divide his thoughts between his kinswoman and his guide, bestowing more upon the latter than he had previously found time or inclination to do. His strange appearance, his stranger character, his sudden metamorphosis from a timid and somewhat over-conscientious professor of the doctrines of peace and good-will, into a highly energetic and unremorseful, not to say, valiant man of war, were all subjects to provoke the soldier's curiosity; which was still further increased when he pondered over the dismal story Nathan had so imperfectly told him on the past day. Of those dreadful calamities which, in Nathan's own language, "had made him what he was," a houseless wanderer of the wilderness, the Virginian would gladly have known more; but his first allusion to the subject produced such evident disorder in Nathan's mind, as if the recollection were too harrowing to be borne, that the young man immediately repressed his inquiries, and diverted his guide's thoughts into another channel. His imagination supplied the imperfect links in the story: he could well believe that the same hands which had shed the blood of every member of the poor borderer's family, might have struck the hatchet into the head of the resisting husband and father; and that the effects of that blow, with the desolation of heart and fortune which the heavier ones, struck at the same time, had entailed, might have driven him to the woods, an idle, and perhaps aimless, wanderer.

How far these causes might have operated in leading Nathan into those late acts of blood which were at such variance with his faith and professions, it remained also for Roland to imagine; and, in truth, he imagined they had operated deeply and far; though nothing in Nathan's own admissions could be found to sanction any belief save that they were the results, partly of accident, and partly of sudden and irresistible impulse.

At all events, it was plain that his warlike feats, however they might at first have shocked his sense of propriety, now sat but lightly on his conscience; and, indeed, since his confession at the Piankeshaw camp, he ceased even to talk of them, perhaps resting upon that as an all-sufficient explanation and apology. It is certain from that moment he bore himself more freely and boldly, entered no protest whatever against being called on to do his share of such fighting as might occur—a stipulation made with such anxious forethought when he first consented to accompany the lost travellers—nor betrayed any tenderness of invective against the Indians, whom, having first spoken of them only as "evil-minded poor Shawnee creatures," he now designated, conformably to established usage among his neighbours of the Stations, as "thieves and dogs," "bloody villains, and rapscallions;" all which expressions he bestowed with as much ease and emphasis as if he had been accustomed to use them all his life.

With this singular friend and companion Roland pursued his way through the wilderness, committing life, and the hopes that were dearer than life, to his sole guidance and protection; nor did anything happen to shake his faith in either the zeal or ability of Nathan to conduct to a prosperous issue the cause he had so freely and disinterestedly espoused.

As they thridded the lonely forest-paths together, Nathan explained at length the circumstances upon which he founded his hopes of success in their project; and, in doing so, convinced the soldier, not only that his sagacity was equal to the enterprise, but that his acquaintance with the wilderness was by no means confined to the region south of the Ohio; the northern countries, then wholly in the possession of the Indian tribes, appearing to be just as well known to him, the Miami country in particular, in which lay the village of the Black-Vulture. How this knowledge had been obtained was not so evident; for, although he averred he hunted the deer or trapped the beaver on either side the river, as appeared to him most agreeable, it was hardly to be supposed he could carry on such operations in the heart of the Indian nation. But it was enough for Roland that the knowledge so essential to his own present plans, was really possessed by his conductor, and he cared not to question how it had been arrived at; it was an augury of success, of which he felt the full influence.

The evening of that day found him upon the banks of the Kentucky, the wild and beautiful river from which the wilderness around derived its name; and the next morning, crossing it on a raft of logs speedily constructed by Nathan, he trod upon the soil of the north side, famous even then for its beauty and for the deeds of bloodshed almost daily enacted among its scattered settlements, and destined, unhappily, to be rendered still more famous for a tragedy which that very day witnessed, far off among the barren ridges of the Licking, where sixty of the district's best and bravest sons fell the victims less of Indian subtlety than of their own unparalleled rashness. But of that bloody field the travellers were to hear thereafter; the vultures were winging their flight towards the fatal scene; but they alone could snuff, in that silent desert, the scent of the battle that vexed it.

Sleeping that night in the woods, the next day, being the fourth since they left the Piankeshaw camp, beheld the travellers upon the banks of the Ohio; which, seen, for the first time, in the glory of summer, its crystal waters wheeling placidly along amid hills and forests, ever reflected in the bright mirror below, and with the air of virgin solitude which, through so many leagues of its course, it still presents, never fails to fill the beholder's mind with an enchanting sense of its loveliness.

Here a raft was again constructed; and the adventurers pushing boldly across, were soon upon the opposite shore. This feat accomplished, Nathan took the precaution to launch their frail float adrift in the current, that no tell-tale memorial of a white man's visit should remain to be read by returning warriors. The next moment, ascending the bank of the river, he plunged with his companion into the midst of brake and forest; neither of them then dreaming that upon the very spot where they toiled through the tangled labyrinths, a few years should behold the magic spectacle of a fair city, the Queen of the West, uprisen with the suddenness, and almost the splendour, of the Fata-Morgana, though, happily, doomed to no such evanescent existence. Then handling their arms, like men who felt they were in a foe-man's country, and knew that every further step was to be taken in peril, they resumed their journey, travelling with such speed and vigour (for Roland's strength had returned apace), that at the close of the day they were, according to Nathan's account, scarce twenty miles distant from the Black-Vulture's village, which they might easily reach the following day. On the following day, accordingly, they resumed their march, avoiding all paths, and stealing through the most unfrequented depths of the woods, proceeding with a caution which was every moment becoming more obviously necessary to the success of their enterprise.

Up to this period their journey had presented nothing of interest, being a mere succession of toil, privation, and occasional suffering, naturally enough to be expected in such an undertaking; but it was now about to be varied by an adventure of no little interest in itself, and, in its consequences, destined to exercise a powerful influence on the prospects of the travellers.

Laying their plans so as to reach the Indian village only about nightfall, and travelling but slowly and with great circumspection, they had not, at mid-day, accomplished much more than half the distance; when they came to a halt in a little dell, extremely wild and sequestered, where Nathan proposed to rest a few hours, and recruit their strength with a warm dinner—a luxury they had not enjoyed for the last two days, during which they had subsisted upon the corn and dried meat from the Indian wallets. Accident had, a few moments before, provided them materials for a more palatable meal. They had stumbled upon a deer that had just fallen under the attack of a catamount; which, easily driven from its yet warm and palpitating quarry, surrendered the feast to its unwelcome visitors. An inspection of the carcass showed that the animal had been first struck by the bullet of some wandering Indian hunter—a discovery that somewhat concerned Nathan, until, after a more careful examination of the wound, which seemed neither severe nor mortal, he was convinced the poor beast had run many long miles, until, in fact, wholly exhausted, before the panther had finished the work of the huntsman. This circumstance removing his uneasiness, he helped himself to the choicest portion of the animal, amputated a hind leg without stopping to flay it, and clapping this upon his shoulder in a very business-like way, left the remainder of the carcass to be despatched by the wild-cat at her leisure.

The little dell, in which Nathan proposed to cook and enjoy his savoury treasure, at ease and in safety, was enclosed by hills; of which the one by which they descended into it fell down in a rolling slope densely covered with trees; while the other, rocky, barren, and almost naked, rose precipitously up, a grim picture of solitude and desolation. A scanty brook, oozing along through the swampy bottom of the hollow, and supplied by a spring near its head, at which the two friends halted to prepare their meal, ran meandering away among alders and other swampy plants, to find exit into a larger vale that opened below, though hidden from the travellers by the winding of the rocky ridge before them.

In this lonely den, Nathan and Roland began straightway to disencumber themselves of arms and provisions, seeming well satisfied with its convenience. But not so little Peter; who, having faithfully accompanied them so far, now following numbly at his master's heels, and now, in periods of alarm or doubt, taking post in front, the leader of the party, uplifted his nose, and fell to snuffing about him in a way that soon attracted his master's notice. Smelling first around the spring, and then giving a look both up and down the glen, as if to satisfy himself there was nothing wrong in either of those quarters, he finally began to ascend the rocky ridge, snuffing as he went, and ever and anon looking back to his master and soliciting his attention by a wag of his tail.

"Truly, thee did once wag to me in vain!" said Nathan, snatching up his gun, and looking volumes of sagacious response at his brute ally, "but thee won't catch me napping again; though, truly, what thee can smell here, where is neither track of man nor print of beast, truly, Peter, I have no idea!"

With these words, he crept up the hill himself, following in little Peter's wake; and Roland, who also grasped his rifle, as Nathan had done, though without perhaps attaching the same importance to Peter's note of warning, thought fit to imitate his example.

In this manner, cautiously crawling up, the two friends reached the crest of the hill; and peering over a precipice of fifty or more feet sheer descent, with which it suddenly dipped into a wild but beautiful little valley below, beheld a scene that, besides startling them somewhat out of their tranquillity, caused both to bless their good fortune they had not neglected the warning of their brute confederate.

The vale below, like that they had left, opened into a wider bottom-land, the bed of a creek, which they could see shining among the trees that overshadowed the rich alluvion; and into this poured a rivulet that chattered along through the glen at their feet, in which it had its sources. The hill on the other side of the little vale, which was of an oval figure, narrowest at its outlet, was rough and precipitous, like that on which they lay; but the two uniting above, bounded the head of the vale with a long, bushy, sweeping slope—a fragment of a natural amphitheatre—which was evidently of an easy ascent, though abrupt and steep. The valley thus circumscribed, though broken, and here and there deeply furrowed by the water-course, was nearly destitute of trees, except at its head, where a few young beeches flung their silver boughs and rich green foliage abroad over the grassy knolls, and patches of papaws drooped their loose leaves and swelling fruit over the stream. It was in this part of the valley, at the distance of three or four hundred paces from them, that the eyes of the two adventurers, directed by the sound of voices, which they had heard the instant they reached the crest of the ridge, fell, first, upon the smoke of a huge fire curling merrily up into the air, and then upon the bodies of no less than five Indian warriors, all zealously and uproariously engaged in an amusement highly characteristic of their race. There was among them a white man, an unfortunate prisoner, as was seen at a glance, whom they had bound by the legs to a tree; around which the savages danced and leaped, yelling now with rage, now in merriment, but all the while belabouring the poor wretch with rods and switches, which, at every turn round the tree, they laid about his head and shoulders with uncommon energy and zest. This was a species of diversion better relished, as it seemed, by the captors than their captive; who, infuriated by his pangs, and perhaps desiring, in the desperation of the moment, to provoke them to end his sufferings with the hatchet, retaliated with his fists, which were at liberty, striking fiercely at every opportunity, and once with such effect as to tumble one of the tormentors to the earth—a catastrophe, however, that the others rewarded with roars of approving laughter, though without for a moment intermitting their own cruelties.

This spectacle, it may be well supposed, produced a strong effect upon the minds of the travellers, who, not without alarm on their own account at the discovery of such dangerous neighbours, could not view without emotion a fellow white man and countryman helpless in their hands, and enduring tortures perhaps preliminary to the more dreadful one of the stake. They looked one another in the face: the Virginian's eyes sparkled with a meaning which Nathan could not misunderstand; and clutching his rifle tighter in his hands, and eyeing the young man with an ominous stare, he muttered,—"Speak, friend,—thee is a man and a soldier—what does thee think, in the case made and provided?"

"We are but two men, and they five," replied Roland, firmly, though in the lowest voice; and then repeated, in the same energetic whisper,—"we are but two men, Nathan; but there is no kinswoman now to unman me!"

Nathan took another peep at the savages before speaking. Then looking upon the young man with an uneasy countenance, he said,—"We are but two men, as thee says, and they five; and, truly, to do what thee thinks of, in open day, is a thing not to be thought on by men that have soft places in their bosoms. Nevertheless, I think, according to thee own opinion, we being strong men that have the wind of the villains, and a good cause to help us, truly, we might snap the poor man they have captivated out of their hands, with considerable much damage to them besides, the murdering rapscallions!—But, friend," he added, seeing Roland give way to his eagerness,—"thee spoke of the fair maid, thee cousin—If thee fights this battle, truly, thee may never see her more."

"If I fall," said Roland,—but he was interrupted by Nathan:

"It is not that thee is to think of. Truly, friend, thee may fight these savages, and thee may vanquish them; but unless thee believes in thee conscience thee can kill them every one—truly, friend, thee can hardly expect it?"

"And why should we? It is enough if we can rescue the prisoner."

"Friend, thee is mistaken. If thee attacks the villains, and but one of them escapes alive to the village, sounding the alarm, thee will never enter the same in search of the maid, thee kinswoman. Thee sees the case: thee must choose between the captive there and thee cousin!"

This was a view of the case, and as Roland felt, a just one, well calculated to stagger his resolutions, if not entirely to abate his sympathy for the unknown sufferer. As his hopes of success in the enterprise for which he had already dared and endured so much, evidently depended upon his ability to approach the Indian village without awakening suspicion, it was undeniable that an attack upon the party in the vale, unless resulting in its complete destruction, must cause, to be borne to the Black-Vulture's town, and on the wings of the wind, the alarm of white men in the woods; and thus not only cut him off from it, but actually bring upon himself all the fighting men who might be remaining in the village. To attack the party with the expectation of wholly destroying it, was, or seemed to be, an absurdity. But to desert a wretched prisoner whom he had it perhaps in his power to rescue from captivity, and from a fate still more dreadful, was a dereliction of duty, of honour, of common humanity, of which he could scarce persuade himself to be guilty. He cast his eyes up the glen, and once more looked upon the captive, who had sunk to the ground, as if from exhaustion, and whom the savages, after beating him awhile longer, as if to force him again on his feet, that they might still enjoy their amusement, now fell to securing with thongs. As Roland looked, he remembered his own night of captivity, and hesitated no longer. Turning to Nathan, who had been earnestly reading the struggles of his mind, as revealed in his face, he said, and with unfaltering resolution,—"You say we can rescue that man.—I was a prisoner, like him, bound too,—a helpless, hopeless captive—three Indians to guard me, and but one friend to look upon me; yet did not that friend abandon me to my fate.—God will protect my poor cousin—we must rescue him!"

"Thee is a man, every inch of thee!" said Nathan, with a look of uncommon satisfaction and fire: "thee shall have thee will in the matter of these murdering Shawnee dogs; and, it may be, it will be none the worse for thee kinswoman."

With that he motioned Roland to creep with him beyond the crest of the hill, where they straightway held a hurried consultation of war to determine upon the plan of proceedings in the prosecution of an adventure so wild and perilous.

The soldier, burning with fierce ardour, proposed that they should take post respectively the one at the head, the other at the outlet of the vale, and creeping as nigh the enemy as they could, deliver their fire, and then rushing on, before the savages could recover from their surprise, do their best to finish the affair with their hatchets,—a plan, which, as he justly said, offered the only prospect of cutting off the retreat of those who might survive the fire. But Nathan had already schemed the matter otherwise: he had remarked the impossibility of approaching the enemy from below, the valley offering no concealment which would make an advance in that quarter practicable; whereas the bushes on the slope, where the two walls of the glen united, afforded the most inviting opportunity to creep on the foe without fear of detection. "Truly," said he, "we will get us as nigh the assassin thieves as we can; and, truly, it may be our luck, each of us, to get a brace of them in range together, and so bang them beautiful!"—an idea that was manifestly highly agreeable to his imagination, from which he seemed to have utterly banished all those disgusts and gaingivings on the subject of fighting, which had formerly afflicted it; "or perhaps, if we can do nothing better," he continued, "we may catch the vagabonds wandering from their guns, to pick up sticks for their fire; in which case, friend, truly, it may be our luck to help them to a second volley out of their own pieces: or, if the worst must come, truly, then, I do know of a device that may help the villains into our hands, even to their own undoing!"

With these words, having first examined his own and Roland's arms, to see that all were in proper battle condition, and then directed little Peter to ensconce in a bush, wherein little Peter straightway bestowed himself, Tiger Nathan, with an alacrity of motion and ardour of look that indicated anything rather than distaste to the murderous work in hand, led the way along the ridge, until he had reached the place where it dipped down to the valley, covered with the bushes through which he expected to advance to a desirable position undiscovered.

But a better auxiliary even than the bushes was soon discovered by the two friends. A deep gully, washed in the side of the hill by the rains, was here found running obliquely from its top to the bottom, affording a covered way, by which, as they saw at a glance, they could approach within twenty or thirty yards of the foe entirely unseen; and, to add to its advantages, it was the bed of a little water-course, whose murmurs, as it leaped from rock to rock, assured them they could as certainly approach unheard.

"Truly," muttered Nathan, with a grim chuckle, as he looked, first, at the friendly ravine, and then at the savages below, "the Philistine rascals is in our hands, and we will smite them hip and thigh!"

With this inspiring assurance he crept into the ravine; and Roland following, they were soon in possession of a post commanding, not only the spot occupied by the enemy, but the whole valley.

Peeping through the fringe of shrubs that rose, a verdant parapet, on the brink of the gully, they looked down upon the savage party, now less than forty paces from the muzzle of their guns, and wholly unaware of the fate preparing for them. The scene of diversion and torment was over; the prisoner, a man of powerful frame but squallid appearance, whose hat,—a thing of shreds and patches,—adorned the shorn pate of one of the Indians, while his coat, equally rusty and tattered, hung from the shoulders of a second, lay bound under a tree, but so nigh that they could mark the laborious heavings of his chest. Two of the Indians sat near him on the grass keeping watch, their hatchets in their hands, their guns resting within reach against the trunk of a tree overthrown by some hurricane of former years, and now mouldering away. A third was engaged with his tomahawk, lopping away the few dry boughs that remained on the trunk. Squatting at the fire, which the third was thus labouring to replenish with fuel, were the two remaining savages, who, holding their rifles in their hands, divided their attention betwixt a shoulder of venison roasting on a stick in the fire, and the captive, whom they seemed to regard as destined to be sooner or later disposed of in a similar manner.

The position of the parties precluded the hope Nathan had ventured to entertain of getting them in a cluster, and so doing double execution with each bullet; but the disappointment neither chilled his ardour nor embarrassed his plans. His scheme of attack had been framed to embrace all contingences; and he wasted no further time in deliberation. A few whispered words conveyed his last instructions to the soldier; who, reflecting that he was fighting in the cause of humanity, remembering his own heavy wrongs, and marking the fiery eagerness that flamed from Nathan's visage, banished from his mind whatever disinclination he might have felt at beginning the fray in a mode so seemingly treacherous and ignoble. He laid his axe on the brink of the gully at his side, together with his foraging cap; and then, thrusting his rifle through the bushes, took aim at one of the savages at the fire, Nathan directing his piece against the other. Both of them presented the fairest marks, as they sat wholly unconscious of their danger, enjoying in imagination the tortures yet to be inflicted on the prisoner. But a noise in the gully,—the falling of a stone loosened by the soldier's foot, or a louder than usual plash of water,—suddenly roused them from their dreams; they started up, and turned their eyes towards the hill.—"Now, friend!" whispered Nathan;—"if thee misses, thee loses thee maiden and thee life into the bargain.—Is thee ready?"

"Ready," was the reply.

"Right, then, through the dog's brain,—fire!"

The crash of the pieces, and the fall of the two victims, both marked by a fatal aim, and both pierced through the brain, were the first announcement of peril to their companions; who, springing up, with yells of fear and astonishment, and snatching at their arms, looked wildly around them for the unseen foe. The prisoner, also, astounded out of his despair, raised his head from the grass, and glared around. The wreaths of smoke curling over the bushes on the hill-side, betrayed the lurking place of the assailants; and savages and prisoner turning together, they all beheld at once the spectacle of two human heads,—or, to speak more correctly, two human caps, for the heads were far below them,—rising in the smoke, and peering over the bushes, as if to mark the result of the volley. Loud, furious, and exulting were the screams of the Indians, as with the speed of thought, seduced by a stratagem often practised among the wild heroes of the border, they raised and discharged their pieces against the imaginary foes so incautiously exposed to their vengeance. The caps fell, and with them the rifles that had been employed to raise them; and the voice of Nathan thundered through the glen, as he grasped his tomahawk and sprang from the ditch,—"Now, friend! up with thee axe, and do thee duty!"

With these words, the two assailants at once leaped into view, and with a bold hurrah, and bolder hearts, rushed towards the fire, where lay the undischarged rifles of their first victims. The savages yelled also in reply, and two of them bounded forward to dispute the prize. The third, staggered into momentary inaction by the suddenness and amazement of the attack, rushed forward but a step; but a whoop of exultation was on his lips, as he raised the rifle which he had not yet discharged, full against the breast of Tiger Nathan. But, his triumph was short-lived; the blow, so fatal as it must have proved to the life of Nathan, was averted by an unexpected incident. The prisoner, near whom he stood, putting all his vigour into one tremendous effort, burst his bonds, and, with a yell ten times louder and fiercer than had yet been uttered, added himself to the combatants. With a furious cry of encouragement to his rescuers,—"Hurrah for Kentucky!—give it to 'em good!" he threw himself upon the savage, beat the gun from his hands, and grasping him in his brawny arms, hurled him to the earth, where, rolling over and over in mortal struggle, growling and whooping, and rending one another like wild beasts, the two, still locked in furious embrace, suddenly tumbled down the banks of the brook, there high and steep, and were immediately lost to sight.

Before this catastrophe occurred, the other Indians and the assailants met at the fire; and each singling out his opponent, and thinking no more of the rifles, they met as men whose only business was to kill or to die. With his axe flourished over his head, Nathan rushed against the tallest and foremost enemy, who, as he advanced, swung his tomahawk, in the act of throwing it. Their weapons parted from their hands at the same moment, and with perhaps equal accuracy of aim; but meeting with a crash in the air, they fell together to the earth, doing no harm to either. The Indian stooped to recover his weapon; but it was too late: the hand of Nathan was already upon his shoulder: a single effort of his vast strength sufficed to stretch the savage at his feet; and holding him down with knee and hand, Nathan snatched up the nearest axe. "If the life of thee tribe was in thee bosom," he cried, with a look of unrelenting fury, of hatred deep and ineffaceable, "thee should die the dog's death, as thee does!" And with a blow furiously struck, and thrice repeated, he despatched the struggling savage as he lay.

He rose, brandishing the bloody hatchet, and looked for his companion. He found him upon the earth, lying upon the breast of his antagonist, whom it had been his good fortune to over-master. Both had thrown their hatchets, and both without effect, Roland because skill was wanting, and the Shawnee because, in the act of throwing, he had stumbled over the body of one of his comrades, so as to disorder his aim, and even to deprive him of his footing. Before he could recover himself, Roland imitated Nathan's example, and threw himself upon the unlucky Indian,—a youth, as it appeared, whose strength, perhaps at no moment equal to his own, had been reduced by recent wounds,—and found that he had him entirely at his mercy. This circumstance, and the knowledge that the other Indians were now overpowered, softened the soldier's wrath; and when Nathan, rushing to assist him, cried aloud to him to move aside, that he might "knock the assassin knave's brains out," Roland replied by begging Nathan to spare his life. "I have disarmed him," he cried—"he resists no more—Don't kill him."

"To the last man of his tribe!" cried Nathan, with unexampled ferocity; and, without another word, drove the hatchet into the wretch's brain.

The victors now leaping to their feet, looked round for the fifth savage and the prisoner; and directed by a horrible din under the bank of the stream, which was resounding with, curses, groans, heavy blows, and the plashing of water, ran to the spot, where the last incident of battle was revealed to them in a spectacle as novel as it was shocking. The Indian lay on his back suffocating in mire and water; while astride his body sat the late prisoner, covered from head to foot with mud and gore, furiously plying his fists, for he had no other weapons, about the head and face of his foe, his blows falling like sledge-hammers or battering-rams, with such strength and fury that it seemed impossible any one of them could fail to crush the skull to atoms; and all the while garnishing them with a running accompaniment of oaths and maledictions little less emphatic and overwhelming. "You switches gentlemen, do you, you exflunctified, perditioned rascal? Ar'n't you got it, you niggur-in-law to old Satan? you 'tarnal half-imp, you? H'yar's for you, you dog, and thar's for you, you dog's dog! H'yar's the way I pay you in a small-change of sogdologers!"

And thus he cried, until Roland and Nathan seizing him by the shoulders, dragged him by main force from the Indian, who was found, when they came to examine the body afterwards, actually pommelled to death, the skull having been beaten in as with bludgeons.—The victor sprang upon his feet, and roared his triumph aloud:—"Ar'n't I lick'd him handsome!—Hurrah for Kentucky and old Salt—Cock-a-doodle-doo!"

And with that, turning to his deliverers, he displayed to their astonished eyes, though disfigured by blood and mire, the never-to-be-forgotten features of the captain of horse-thieves, Soaring Ralph Stackpole.



CHAPTER XXVI.

The amazement of Stackpole at finding to whom he owed his deliverance, was not less than that of the travellers; but it was mingled, in his case, with feelings of the most unbounded and clamorous delight. Nathan he grasped by the hands, being the first upon whom he set his eyes; but no sooner had they wandered to the soldier, than throwing his arms around him, he gave him a hug, neither tender nor respectful, but indicative of the intensest affection and rapture.

"You cut the rope, stranger, and you cut the tug," he cried, "on madam's beseeching! but h'yar's the time you holped me out of a fix without axing! Now, strannger, I ar'n't your dog, 'cause how, I'm anngelliferous madam's: but if I ar'n't your dog, I'm your man, Ralph Stackpole, to be your true-blue through time and etarnity, any way you'll ax me; and if you wants a sodger, I'll 'list with you, I will, 'tarnal death to me!"

"But how, in heaven's name, came you here a prisoner? I saw you escape with my own eyes," said Roland, better pleased, perhaps, at the accession of such a stout auxiliary than with his mode of professing love and devotion.

"Strannger," said Ralph, "if you war to ax me from now till doomsday about the why and the wharfo' I couldn't make you more nor one answer: I come to holp anngelliferous madam out of the hands of the abbregynes, according to my sworn duty as her natteral-born slave and redemptioner! I war hard on the track, when the villians here caught me."

"What!" cried Roland, his heart for the first time warming towards the despised horse-thief, while even Nathan surveyed him with something like complacency, "you are following my poor cousin then? You were not brought here a prisoner?"

"If I war, I wish I may be shot," said Ralph: "it warn't a mile back on the ridge, whar the Injuns snapped me; 'causa how, I jist bang'd away at a deer, and jist then up jumps the rascals on me, afo' I had loaded old speechifier; and so they nabb'd me! And so, sodger, h'yar's the way of it all: You see, d'you see, as soon as Tom Bruce comes to, so as to be able to hold the hoss himself—"

"What," said Roland, "was he not mortally wounded?"

"He ar'n't much hurt to speak on, for all of his looking so much like coffin-meat at the first jump: it war a kind of narvousness come over him that men feels when they gets the thwack of a bullet among the narves. And so, you see, d'you see, says I, 'Tom Bruce, do you stick to the critter, and he'll holp you out of the skrimmage;' and, says I, 'I'll take the back-track, and foller atter madam.' And, says he, says he—But, 'tarnal death to me, let's scalp these h'yar dead villians, and do the talking atter! Did you see the licking I gin this here feller? It war a reggular fair knock-down-and-drag-out, and I licked him! Thar's all sorts of ways of killing Injuns; but, I reckon, I'm the only gentleman in all Kentuck as ever took a scalp in the way of natur'! Hurrah for Kentuck! and hurrah for Ralph Stackpole, for he ar' a screamer!"

The violation of the dead bodies was a mode of crowning their victory which Roland would have gladly dispensed with; but such forbearance, opposed to all border ideas of manly spirit and propriety, found no advocate in the captain of horse-thieves, and none, we are sorry to say, even in the conscientious Nathan; who, having bathed his peaceful sword too deep in blood to boggle longer at trifles, seemed mightily inclined to try his own hand at the exercise. But this addition to the catalogue of his backslidings was spared him, Roaring Ralph falling to work with an energy of spirit and rapidity of execution, which showed he needed no assistance, and left no room for competition.—Such is the practice of the border, and such it has been ever since the mortal feud, never destined to be really ended but with the annihilation, or civilisation, of the American race, first began between the savage and the white intruder. It was, and is, essentially a measure of retaliation, compelled, if not justified, by the ferocious example of the red man. Brutality ever begets brutality; and magnanimity of arms can be only exercised in the case of a magnanimous foe. With such, the wildest and fiercest rover of the frontier becomes a generous and even humane enemy.

The Virginian was yet young in the war of the wilderness: and turning in disgust from a scene he could not prevent, he made his way to the fire, where the haunch of venison, sending forth a savoury steam through the whole valley, was yet roasting on the rude Indian spit,—a spectacle which (we record it with shame) quite banished from his mind not only all thoughts of Ralph's barbarism, but even the sublime military ardour awakened by the din and perils of the late conflict. Nor were its effects less potential upon Nathan and Ralph, who, having first washed from their hands and faces the stains of battle, now drew nigh, snuffing the perfume of a dinner with as much ardour as they could have bestowed on the scent of battle. The haunch, cooked to their hands, was straightway removed to a convenient place, where all, drawing their knives, fell foul with an energy of appetite and satisfaction that left them oblivious of most sublunary affairs. The soldier forgot his sorrows, and Nathan forgot little Peter,—though little Peter, by suddenly creeping out of the bushes on the hill, and crawling humbly to the table, and his master's side, made it apparent he had not forgot himself. As for the captain of horse-thieves, he forgot everything save the dinner itself, which he attacked with an appetite well nigh ravenous, having, as he swore, by way of grace over the first mouthful, eaten nothing save roots and leaves for more than three days. It was only when, by despatching at least twice his share of the joint, he began to feel, as he said, "summat like a hoss and a gentleman," that the others succeeded in drawing from him a full account of the circumstances which had attended his solitary inroad into the Indian country and his fall into the clutches of the Shawnee party.

But little had the faithful fellow to impart, beyond what he had already told. Galloping from the fatal hill, the scene of defeat to the young Kentuckians, he sustained Tom Bruce in his arms, until the latter, reviving, had recovered strength enough to provide for his own safety; upon which Ralph, with a degree of Quixotism, that formed a part of his character, and which was, in this instance, strengthened by his grateful devotion to Edith, the saver of his life, declared he would pursue the trail of her captors, even if it led him to their village, nor cease his efforts until he had rescued her out of their hands, or laid down his life in her service. In this resolution he was encouraged by Bruce, who swore on his part, that he would instantly follow with his father, and all the men he could raise, recover the prisoners, and burn the towns of the whole Shawnee nation about their ears; a determination he was perhaps the more readily driven to by the reflection that the unlucky captives were his father's individual guests, and had been snatched away while still, in a manner, under, or relying on, his father's protection. So much he promised, and so much there was no doubt he would, if able, perform; nevertheless, he exhorted Ralph to do his best, in the meanwhile, to help the strangers, vowing, if he succeeded in rendering them any assistance, or in taking a single scalp of the villains that had borne them off, he would not only never Lynch him, himself, but would not even allow others to do it, though he were to steal all the horses in Kentucky, his father's best bay mare included.

Thus encouraged, the valiant horse-thief, bidding farewell to Tom Bruce and Brown Briareus together, commenced making good his words by creeping back to the battle-field; when, arriving before Nathan, he struck the trail of the main party, and immediately pursued it with zeal and courage, but still with the necessary caution and circumspection; his hopes of being able to do something to the advantage of his benefactress, resting principally on his knowledge of several of the outer Indian towns, in every one of which, he boasted, he had stolen horses. Being but poorly provided with food, and afraid to hunt while following so closely on the heels of the marauders, he was soon reduced to want and suffering, which he bore for three days with heroic fortitude; until at last, on the morning of the present day, being in a state of utter starvation, and a buck springing up in his path, he could resist the temptation no longer, and so fired upon it. The animal being wounded, and apparently severely, he set off in pursuit, too eager to lose time by recharging his piece; and it was while he was in that defenceless condition that the five Indians, a detachment and rear-guard, as it proved, of the very party he was dogging, attracted by the sound of his gun, stole upon him unawares and made him a prisoner. This, it seems, had happened but a short distance behind; and there was every reason to suppose that the buck, from whose loins the travellers had filched the haunch that destiny had superseded by a better, was the identical animal whose seducing appearance had brought Stackpole into captivity. He was immediately recognised by his captors, whose exultation was boundless, as indeed was their cruelty; and he could only account for their halting with him in that retired hollow, instead of pushing on to display their prize to the main body, by supposing they could not resist their desire to enjoy a snug little foretaste of the joys of torturing him at the stake, all by themselves,—a right they had earned by their good fortune in taking him. In the valley, then, they had paused, and tying him up, proceeded straightway to flog him to their hearts' content; and they had just resolved to intermit the amusement awhile, in favour of their dinner, when the appearance of his bold deliverers rushing into their camp, converted the scene of brutal merriment into one of retributive vengeance and blood.

The discovery that the five human beings he had contributed so much to destroy, were part and parcel of the very band, the authors of all his sufferings, the captors of his kinswoman, abated some little feelings of compunction with which Roland had begun occasionally to look upon the gory corses around him.

The main body of marauders, with their prisoner, there seemed good reason to suppose, were yet upon their march to the village, though too far advanced to leave any hope of overtaking them, were that even desirable. It is true, that Roland, fired by the thought of being so near his kinswoman, and having before his eyes a proof of what might be done by craft and courage, even against overwhelming numbers, urged Nathan immediately to re-commence the pursuit; the Indians would doubtless halt to rest and refresh, as the luckless five had done, and might be approached and destroyed, now that they themselves had increased their forces by the rescue of Ralph, in the same way: "we can carry, with us," he said, "these Indians' guns, with which we shall be more than a match for the villains;" and he added other arguments, such, however, as appeared much more weighty to himself than to honest Nathan. That the main party should have halted, as he supposed, did not appear at all probable to Nathan: they had no cause to arrest them in their journey, and they were but a few miles removed from the village, whither they would doubtless proceed without delay, to enjoy the rewards of their villany, and end the day in revel and debauch. "And truly, friend," he added, "it will be better for thee, and me, and the maid, Edith, that we steal her by night from out of a village defended only by drowsy squaws and drunken warriors, than if we were to aim at taking her out of the camp of a war-party. Do thee keep thee patience; and, truly, there is no telling what good may come of it." In short, Nathan had here, as in previous instances, made up his mind to conduct affairs his own way; and Roland, though torn by impatience, could do nothing better than submit.

And now, the dinner being at last despatched, Nathan directed that the bodies of the slain Indians should be tumbled into a gully, and hidden from sight; a measure of such evident precaution as to need no explanation. This was immediately done; but not before Ralph and the man of peace had well rummaged the pouches of the dead, helping themselves to such valuables and stores of provender and ammunition as they could lay hands on; in addition to which, Nathan stripped from one a light Indian hunting-shirt, from another a blanket, a woman's shawl, and a medicine bag, from a third divers jingling bundles of brooches and hawk-bells, together with a pouch containing vermilion and other paints, the principal articles of savage toilet; which he made up into a bundle, to be used for a purpose he did not conceal from his comrades. He then seized upon the rifles of the dead (from among which Stackpole had already singled out his own), and removing the locks, hid them away in crannies of the cliffs, concealing the locks in other places;—a disposition which he also made of the knives and tomahawks; remarking, with great justice, that "if honest Christian men were to have no good of the weapons, it was just as well murdering Injuns should be no better off."

These things concluded, the dead covered over with boughs and brambles, and nothing left in the vale to attract a passing and unobservant eye, he gave the signal to resume the march, and with Roland and Captain Ralph, stole from the field of battle.



CHAPTER XXVII.

The twilight was darkening in the west, when the three adventurers, stealing through tangled thickets, and along lonely ridges, carefully avoiding all frequented paths, looked out at last, from a distant hill, upon the valley in which lay the village of the Black-Vulture. The ruddy light of evening, bursting from clouds of crimson and purple, and shooting down through gaps of the hills in cascades of fire, fell brightly and sweetly on the little prairies, or natural meadow-lands; which, dotted over with clumps of trees, and watered by a fairy river, a tributary of the rapid Miami, winding along from side to side, now hiding beneath the shadow of the hills, now glancing into light, gave an air of tender beauty to the scene better befitting, as it might have seemed, the retreat of the innocent and peaceful sons of Oberon, than the wild and warlike children of the wilderness. Looking further up the vale, the eye fell upon patches of ripening maize, waving along the river; and beyond these, just where the valley winded away behind the hills, at the distance of a mile or more, thin wreaths of smoke creeping from roofs of bark and skins, indicated the presence of the Indian village.

Thus arrived at the goal and haven of their hopes, the theatre in which was to be acted the last scene in the drama of their enterprise, the travellers surveyed it for awhile from their concealment, in deep silence, each speculating in his own mind upon the exploits still to be achieved, the perils yet to be encountered, ere success should crown their exertions, already so arduous and so daring. Then creeping back again into a deep hollow, convenient for their purpose, they held their last consultation, and made their final preparations for entering the village. This Nathan at first proposed to do entirely alone, to spy out the condition of the village, and to discover, if possible, in what quarter the marauders had bestowed the unhappy Edith; and this being a duty requiring the utmost secrecy and circumspection, he insisted it could not be safely committed to more than one person.

"In that case," said valiant Ralph, "I'm your gentleman! Do you think, old Tiger Nathan (and, 'tarnal death to me, I do think you're 'ginnin' to be a peeler of the rale ring-tail specie,—I do, old Rusty, and thar's my fo'paw on it: you've got to be a man at last, a feller for close locks and fighting Injuns that's quite cu'rous to think on, and I'll lick any man that says a word agin you, I will, 'tarnal death to me): But I say, do you think I'm come so far atter madam, to gin up the holping her out of bondage to any mortal two-legg'd crittur whatsomever? I'm the person what knows this h'yar town better nor ar another feller in all Kentucky; and that I stick on,—for, cuss me, I've stole hosses in it!"

"Truly," said Nathan, after reflecting awhile, "thee might make theeself of service to the maid, even in thee own way; but, verily, thee is an unlucky man, and thee brings bad luck wheresoever thee goes; and so I'm afeard of thee."

"Afeard of your nose!" said Ralph, with great indignation; "ar'n't I jist been slicked out of the paws of five mortal abbregynes that had me in the tugs? and ar'n't that luck enough for any feller? I tell you what, Nathan, me and you will snuff the track together: you shall hunt up anngelliferous madam, and gin her my compliments; and, while you're about it, I'll steal her a hoss to ride off on!"

"Truly," said Nathan, complacently, "I was thinking of that; for, they says, thee is good in a horse-pound; and it needs the poor maid should have something better to depend on, in flight, than her own poor innocent legs. And so, friend, if thee thinks in thee conscience thee can help her to a strong animal, without fear of discovery, I don't care if thee goes with me: and, truly, if thee could steal two or three more of the creatures for our own riding, it might greatly advantage the maid."

"Thar you talk like a feller of gumption," said Ralph: "only show me the sight of a bit of skin-rope for halters, and you'll see a sample of hoss-stealing to make your ha'r stand on eend!"

"Of a truth," said Nathan, "thee shan't want for halters, if leather can make them. There is that on my back which will make thee a dozen; and, truly, as it needs I should now put me on attire more suitable to an Injun village, it is a satisfaction thee can put the old garment to such good use."

With these words, Nathan stripped off his coat of skins, so aged and so venerable, and gave it to the captain of horse-thieves; who, vastly delighted with the prize, instantly commenced cutting it into strips, which he twisted together, and fashioned into rude halters; while Nathan supplied its place by the loose calico shirt he had selected from among the spoils of the Indian party, throwing over it, mantle-wise, the broad Indian blanket. His head he bound round with the gaudy shawl which he had also taken from the brows of a dead foe-man; and he hung about his person various pouches and ornamented belts, provided for the purpose. Then, daubing over his face, arms, and breast with streaks of red, black, and green paint, that seemed designed to represent snakes, lizards, and other reptiles; he was, on a sudden, converted into a highly respectable-looking savage, as grim and awe-inspiring as these barbaric ornaments and his attire, added to his lofty stature, could make him. Indeed, the metamorphosis was so complete, that Captain Ralph, as he swore, could scarce look at him without longing, as this worthy personage expressed it, "to be at his top-knot."

In the meanwhile, Forrester had not deferred with patience to an arrangement which threatened to leave him, the most interested of all, in inglorious activity, while his companions were labouring in the cause of his Edith. He remonstrated, and insisted upon accompanying them to the village, to share with them all the dangers of the enterprise.

"If there was danger to none but ourselves, truly, thee should go with us and welcome," said Nathan; representing, justly enough, the little service that Roland, destitute of the requisite knowledge and skill, could be expected to render, and the dangers he must necessarily bring upon the others, in case of any, the most ordinary, difficulties arising in their progress through the village. Everything must now depend upon address, upon cunning and presence of mind; the least indiscretion (and how many might not the soldier, his feelings wound up to a pitch of the intensest excitement, commit?) must of necessity terminate in the instant destruction of all. In short, Roland was convinced, though sorely against his will, that wisdom and affection both called on him to play the part Nathan had assigned him; and he submitted to be ruled accordingly,—with the understanding, however, that the rendezvous, in which he was to await the operations of the others, should be upon the very borders of the village, whence he might, in any pressing emergency, in case of positive danger and conflict, be immediately called to their assistance.

When the twilight had darkened away, and the little river, rippling along on its course, sparkled only in the light of the stars, the three friends crept from their retreat, and descended boldly into the valley; where, guided by the barking of dogs, the occasional yells of a drunken or gamesome savage, and now and then the red glare of a fire flashing from the open crannies of a cabin, they found little difficulty in approaching the Indian village. It was situated on the further bank of the stream, and, as described, just behind the bend of the vale, at the bottom of a rugged, but not lofty hill; which, jutting almost into the river, left yet space enough for the forty or fifty lodges composing the village, sheltering them in winter from the bitter blasts that rush, at that season, from the northern lakes. Beyond the river, on the side towards the travellers, the vale was broader; and it was there the Indians had chiefly planted their corn-fields,—fields enriched by the labour, perhaps also by the tears, of their oppressed and degraded women.

Arriving at the borders of the cultivated grounds, the three adventurers crossed the river, which was neither broad nor deep, and stealing among logs and stumps at the foot of the hill, where some industrious savage had, in former years, begun to clear a field, which, however, his wives had never planted, they lay down in concealment, waiting until the subsiding of the unusual bustle in the village, a consequence manifestly of the excesses which Nathan predicted the victors would indulge in, should render their further advance practicable. But this was not the work of a moment. The savage can drink and dance through the night with as lusty a zeal as his white neighbour; the song, the jest, the merry tale, are as dear to his imagination; and in the retirement of his own village, feeling no longer the restraint of stolid gravity,—assumed in the haunts of the white man, less to play the part of a hero than to cover the nakedness of his own inferiority,—he can give himself up to wild indulgence, the sport of whim and frolic; and, when the fire-water is the soul of the feast, the feast only ends with the last drop of liquor.

It could be scarcely doubted that the Indians of the village were, this night, paying their devotions to the Manito of the rum-keg, and drinking folly and fury together from the enchanted draught, which one of the bravest of the race—its adorer and victim, like Logan the heroic, and Red-Jacket the renowned,—declared could only have been distilled "from the hearts of wild-cats and the tongues of women,—it made him so fierce and so foolish;" nor could it, on the other hand, be questioned that many a sad and gloomy reminiscence, the recollection of wrong, of defeat, of disaster, of the loss of friends and of country, was mingled in the joy of the debauch. From their lurking-place near the village, the three friends could hear many a wild whoop, now fierce and startling, now plaintive and mourning,—the one, as Nathan and Ralph said, the halloo for revenge, the other the whoop of lamentation,—at intervals chiming strangely in with unmeaning shrieks and roaring laughter, the squeaking of women and the gibbering of children, with the barking of curs, the utterance of obstreperous enjoyment, in which the whole village, brute and human, seemed equally to share. For a time, indeed, one might have deemed the little hamlet an outer burgh of Pandemonium itself; and the captain of horse-thieves swore, that, having long been of opinion "the red abbregynes war the rule children of Sattan, and niggers only the grand-boys, he should now hold the matter to be as settled as if booked down in an almanac,—he would, 'tarnal death to him."

But if the festive spirit of the barbarians might have lasted for ever, there was, it appeared, no such exhaustless quality in their liquor; and, that failing at last, the uproar began gradually to decrease; although it was not until within an hour of midnight that Nathan declared the moment had arrived for entering the village.

He then rose from his lair, and repeating his injunctions to Roland to remain where he was, until the issue of his own visit should be known, added a word of parting counsel, which, to Roland's imagination, bore somewhat an ominous character. "The thing that is to come," he said, "neither thee nor me knows anything about; for, truly, an Injun village is a war-trap, which one may sometimes creep into easy enough; but, truly, the getting out again is another matter. And so, friend, if it should be my luck, and friend Ralph's, to be killed or captivated, so that we cannot return to thee again, do thee move by the first blink of day, and do thee best to save thee own life; and, truly, I have some hope that thee may succeed, seeing that, if I should fall, little Peter (which I will leave with thee, for, truly, he would but encumber me among the dogs of the village, having better skill to avoid murdering Injuns than the creatures of his own kind), will make thee his master,—as verily, he can no longer serve a dead one,—and show thee the way back again from the wilderness. Truly, friend, he hath an affection for thee, for thee has used him well; which he can say of no other persons, save only thee and me excepted."

With that, having laid aside his gun, which, as he represented, could be, in such an undertaking, of no service, and directed Stackpole to do the same, he shook Roland by the hand, and, waiting an instant till Ralph had followed his example, and added his farewell in the brief phrase,—"Sodger, I'm atter my mistress; and, for all Nathan's small talk about massacree and captivation, we'll fetch her, with a most beautiful lot of hosses; so thar's no fawwell about it,"—turned to little Peter, whom he addressed quite as gravely as he had done the Virginian. "Now, little dog Peter," said he, "I leave thee to take care of theeself and the young man that is with thee; and do thee be good, and faithful, and obedient, as thee always has been, and have a good care thee keeps out of mischief."

With these words, which Peter, doubtless, perfectly understood, for he squatted himself down upon the ground, without any attempt to follow his master, Nathan departed, with Roaring Ralph at his side, leaving Roland to mutter his anxieties and fears, his doubts and impatience, into the ears of the least presuming of counsellors.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

The night was brilliantly clear, the stars shining with an excess of lustre, with which Nathan would perhaps, at that moment, have gladly dispensed, since it was by no means favourable to the achievement he was now so daringly attempting. Fortunately, however, the Indian village lay, for the most part, in the shadow of the hill, itself covered with majestic maples and tulip-trees, that rose in dark and solemn masses above it, and thus offered the concealment denied in the more open parts of the valley. With Ralph still at his side, he crept round the projecting corner of the hill, and, shrouded in its gloom, drew nigh the village, wherein might be still occasionally heard the halloo of a drunken savage, followed by an uproarious chorus of barking and howling curs.

Whether it was that these sounds, or some gloomy forebodings of his own, awoke the anxieties of Nathan, he did not deign to reveal; but, by and by, having arrived within but a few paces of a wretched pile of skins and boughs, the dwelling of some equally wretched and improvident barbarian, he came to a sudden halt, and withdrawing the captain of horse-thieves aside from the path, addressed him in the following terms:—

"Thee says, friend, thee has taken horses from this very Village, and that thee knows it well?"

"As well," replied Ralph, "as I know the step-mothers on my own thumbs and fingers,—I do, 'tarnal death to me,—that is to say, all the parts, injacent and outjacent, circum-surrounding the boss-stamp; for thar's the place of my visiting. The way to fetch it, old boy, is jist to fetch round this h'yar old skin-pot, whar thar's a whole bee's-nest of young papooses, the size of bull-toads,—from that, up—(I know it, 'cause how, I heerd 'em squallin'; and thar war some one a lickin' 'em); or, if you don't favour taking it so close to the skirmudgeons, then you must claw up the knob h'yar, and then take and take the shoot, till you fetch right among the hosses, whar you h'ar them whinnying down the holler; and thar—"

"Friend," said Nathan, cutting him short, "it is on thee doings, more than on them of any others, that the hopes of the maid Edith—"

"Call her anngelliferous madam," said Ralph, "for I can't stand any feller being familiar with her,—I can't, no how."

"Well, friend," said Nathan, "it is on thee doings that her escaping the Shawnee villains this night depends. If thee does well, it may be we shall both discover and carry her safe away from captivation: if thee acts as a foolish imprudent man,—and, truly, friend, I have my fears of thee,—thee will both fail to help her theeself, and prevent others doing it, who, it may be, has the power."

"Old boy," said the captain of horse-thieves, with something like a gulp of emotion, "you ar'n't respectable to a feller's feelings. But I'll stand anything from you, 'cause how, you down'd my house in a fa'r tussle, and you helped the captain thar that helped me out of trouble. If you're atter ginning me a bit of wisdom, and all on madam's account, I'm jist the gentleman that h'ars you. State the case, and h'yar stands I confawmable."

"Well, friend," said Nathan, "what I have to advise thee is, that thee stops where thee is, leaving the rest of this matter entirely to me; seeing that, as thee knows nothing of this Injun village, excepting the horse-pound thereof, it will not be safe for thee to enter. Do thee rest where thee is, and I will spy out the place of the maiden's concealing."

"Old feller," said Captain Ralph, "you won't pretend you knows more of the place than me? You don't go for to say you ever stole a hoss here?"

"Do thee be content, friend," said Nathan, "to know there is not a cabin in all the village that is unbeknown to me: do thee be content with that. Thee must not go near the pound, until thee knows for certain the maid thee calls madam can be saved. Truly, friend, it may be we cannot help her to-night, but may do so to-morrow night."

"I see what you're up to," said Ralph: "and thar's no denying it war a natteral piece of nonsense to steal a hoss, afo' madam war ready to ride him. And so, old Nathan, if it ar' your qualified opinion I'll sarve madam better by snuggin' under a log, than by snuffin' atter her among the cabins, I'm jist the gentleman to knock under, accordin' to reason."

This declaration seemed greatly to relieve the uneasiness of Nathan, who recommending him to be as good as his word, and ensconce among some logs lying near the path, awaiting the event of his own visit to the heart of the village, immediately took his leave; though not with the timid and skulking step of a spy. Wrapping his blanket about his shoulders, and assuming the gait of a savage, he stalked boldly forwards; jingling under his mantle the bundle of hawk's-bells which he carried in his hand, as if actually to invite the observation of such barbarians as were yet moving through the village.

But this stretch of audacity, as the listening horse-thief was at first inclined to esteem it, was soon seen to have been adopted with a wise foreknowledge of its effects in removing one of the first and greatest difficulties in the wanderer's way. At the first cabin was a troop of yelling curs, that seemed somewhat disturbed by the stranger's approach, and disposed to contest his right of passing scot-free; but a jerk of the bells settled the difficulty in a moment; and the animals, mute and crest-fallen, slunk nastily away, as if expecting the crash of a tomahawk about their ears, in the usual summary Indian way, to punish their presumption in baying a warrior.

"A right-down natteral, fine conceit!" muttered Captain Ralph, approvingly: "the next time I come a-grabbin' hosses, if I don't fetch a bushel of the jinglers, I wish I may be kicked! Them thar Injun dogs is always the devil."

In the meanwhile, Nathan, though proceeding with such apparent boldness, and relying upon his disguise as all-sufficient to avert suspicion, was by no means inclined to court any such dangers as could be really avoided. If the light of a fire still burning in a wigwam, and watched by wakeful habitants, shone too brightly from its door, he crept by with the greatest circumspection; and he gave as wide a berth as possible to every noisy straggler who yet roamed through the village.

There was indeed necessity for every precaution. It was evident, that the village was by no means so destitute of defence as he had imagined,—that the warriors of Wenonga had not generally obeyed the call that carried the army of the tribes to Kentucky, but had remained in inglorious ease and sloth in their own cabins. There was no other way, at least, of accounting for the dozen or more male vagabonds, whom he found at intervals stretched here before a fire, where they had been carousing in the open air, and there lying asleep across the path, just where the demon of good cheer had dropped them. Making his own inferences from their appearance, and passing them with care, sometimes even, where their slumbers seemed unsound, crawling by on his face, he succeeded at last in reaching the central part of the village; where the presence of several cabins of logs, humble enough in themselves, but far superior to the ordinary hovels of an Indian village, indicated the abiding place of the superiors of the clan, or of those apostate white men, renegades from the States, traitors to their country and to civilisation, who were, at that day, in so many instances, found uniting their fortunes with the Indians, following, and even leading them, in their bloody incursions upon the frontiers. To one of those cabins Nathan made his way with stealthy step; and peeping through a chink in the logs, beheld a proof that here a renegade had cast his lot, in the appearance of some half a dozen naked children, of fairer hue than the savages, yet not so pale as those of his own race, sleeping on mats round a fire, at which sat, nodding and dozing, the dark-eyed Indian mother.

One brief, earnest look Nathan gave to this spectacle; then, stealing away, he bent his steps towards a neighbouring cabin, which he approached with even greater precautions than before. This was a hovel of logs, like the other, but of still better construction, having the uncommon convenience of a chimney, built of sticks and mud, through whose low wide top ascended volumes of smoke, made ruddy by the glare of the flames below. A cranny here also afforded the means of spying into the doings within; and Nathan, who approached it with the precision of one not unfamiliar with the premises, was not tardy to avail himself of its advantages. Bare naked walls of logs, the interstices rudely stuffed with moss and clay,—a few uncouth wooden stools,—a rough table,—a bed of skins,—and implements of war and the chase hung in various places about the room, all illuminated more brilliantly by the fire on the hearth than by the miserable tallow candle, stuck in a lamp of humid clay, that glimmered on the table,—were not the only objects to attract the wanderer's eye. Sitting by the fire were two men, both white; though the blanket and calico shirt of one, and the red shawl which he was just in the act of removing from his brows, as Nathan peeped through the chink, with an uncommon darkness of skin and hair, might have well made him pass for an Indian. His figure was very tall, well proportioned, and athletic; his visage manly, and even handsome; though the wrinkles of forty winters furrowed deeply in his brows, and perhaps a certain repelling gleam, the light of smothered passions shining from the eyes below, might have left that merit questionable with the beholder.

The other was a smaller man, whom Roland, had he been present, would have recognised as the supposed half-breed, who, at the partition of spoils, after the capture of his party, and the defeat of the young Kentuckians, had given him a prisoner into the hands of the three Piankeshaws,—in a word, the renegade father of Telie Doe. Nor was his companion less familiar to Nathan, who beheld in his sombre countenance the features of that identical stranger, seen with Doe at the fire among the assailants at the memorable ruin, whose appearance had awakened the first suspicion that there was more in the attack than proceeded from ordinary causes. This was a discovery well fitted to increase the interest, and sharpen the curiosity, of the man of peace: who peering in upon the pair from the chink, gave all his faculties to the duty of listening and observing. The visage of Doe, dark and sullen at the best, was now peculiarly moody; and he sat gazing into the fire, apparently regardless of his companion, who, as he drew the shawl from his head, and threw it aside, muttered something into Doe's ears, but in a voice too low for Nathan to distinguish what he said. The whisper was repeated once and again, but without seeming to produce any impression upon Doe's ears; at which the other growing impatient, gave, to Nathan's great satisfaction, a louder voice to his discourse:

"Hark, you, Jack,—Atkinson,—Doe,—Shanogenaw,—Rattlesnake,—or whatever you may be pleased to call yourself," he cried, striking the muser on the shoulder, "are you mad, drunk, or asleep? Get up, man, and tell me, since you will tell me nothing else, what the devil you are dreaming about?"

"Why, curse it," said the other, starting up somewhat in anger, but draining, before he spoke, a deep draught from an earthen pitcher that stood on the table,—"I was thinking, if you must know, about the youngster, and the dog's death we have driven him to—Christian work for Christian men, eh?"

"The fate of war!" exclaimed the renegade's companion, with great composure; "we have won the battle, boy;—the defeated must bear the consequences."

"Ondoubtedly," said Doe,—"up to the rack, fodder or no fodder: that's the word; there's no 'scaping them consequences; they must be taken as they come,—gantelope, fire-roasting, and all. But, I say, Dick—saving your pardon for being familiar," he added, "there's the small matter to be thought on in the case,—and that is, it was not Injuns, but rale right-down Christian men that brought the younker to the tug. It's a bad business for white men, and it makes me feel oncomfortable."

"Pooh," said the other, with an air of contemptuous commiseration, "you are growing sentimental. This comes of listening to that confounded whimpering Telie."

"No words agin the gal!" cried Doe, sternly; "you may say what you like of me, for I'm a rascal that desarves it; but I'll stand no barking agin the gal."

"Why, she's a good girl and a pretty girl,—too good and too pretty to have so crusty a father,—and I have nothing against her, but her taking on so about the younker, and so playing the devil with the wits and good-looks of my own bargain."

"A dear bargain she is like to prove to all of us," said Doe, drowning his anger, or remorse, in another draught from the pitcher. "She has cost us eleven men already: it is well the bulk of the whelps was Wabash and Maumee dogs, or you would have seen her killed and scalped, for all of your guns and whisky,—you would, there's no two ways about it. Howsomever, four of 'em was dogs of our own, and two of them was picked off by the Jibbenainosay. I tell you what, Dick, I'm not the man to skear at a raw-head-and-bloody-bones; but I do think the coming of this here cursed Jibbenainosay among us, jist as we was nabbing the girl and sodger, was as much as to say there was no good could come of it; and so the Injuns thought too—you saw how hard it was to bring 'em up to the scratch, when they found he had been knifing a feller right among 'em! I do believe the crittur's Old Nick himself!"

"So don't I," said the other; "for it is quite unnatural to suppose the devil would ever take part against his own children."

"Perhaps," said Doe, "you don't believe in the crittur?"

"Good Jack, honest Jack," replied his companion, "I am no such ass."

"Them that don't believe in hell, will natterly go agin the devil," muttered the renegade, with strong signs of disapprobation; and then added earnestly,—"Look you, Squire, you're a man that knows more of things than me, and the likes of me. You saw that 'ere Injun, dead, in the woods under the tree, where the five scouters had left him a living man?"

"Ay," said the man of the turban; "but he had been wounded by the horseman you so madly suffered to pass the ambush at the ford, and was obliged to stop from loss of blood and faintness. What so natural as to suppose the younker fell upon him (we saw the tracks of the whole party where the body lay), and slashed him in your devil's style, to take advantage of the superstitious fear of the Indians?"

"There's nothing like being a lawyer, sartain!" grumbled Doe. "But the warrior right among us, there at the ruin?—you seed him yourself,—marked right in the thick of us! I reckon you won't say the sodger, that we had there trapped up fast in the cabin, put the cross on that Injun too?"

"Nothing more likely," said the sceptic;—"a stratagem a bold man might easily execute in the dark."

"Well, Squire," said Doe, waxing impatient, "you may jist as well work it out according to law that this same sodger younker, that never seed Kentucky afore in his life, has been butchering Shawnees there, ay, and in this d—d town too, for ten years agone. Ay, Dick, it's true, jist as I tell you: there has been a dozen or more Injun warriors struck and scalped in our very wigwams here, in the dead of the night, and nothing, in the morning, but the mark of the Jibbenainosay to tell who was the butcher. There's not a cussed warrior of them all that doesn't go to his bed at night in fear; for none knows when the Jibbenainosay,—the Howl of the Shawnees,—may be upon him. You must know, there was some bloody piece of business done in times past (Injuns is the boys for them things!)—the murdering of a knot of innocent people—by some of the tribe, with the old villain Wenonga at the head of 'em. Ever since that, the Jibbenainosay has been murdering among them; and they hold that it's a judgment on the tribe, as ondoubtedly it is. And now, you see, that's jist the reason why the old chief has turned such a vagabond; for the tribe is rifled at him, because of his bringing such a devil on them, and they won't follow him to battle no more, except some sich riff-raff, vagabond rascals as them we picked up for this here rascality, no how. And so, you see, it has a sort of set the old feller mad: he thinks of nothing but the Jibbenainosay,—(that is, when he's sober, though, cuss him, I believe it's all one when he's drunk, too.)—of hunting him up and killing him, for he's jist a feller to fight the devil, there's no two ways about it. It was because I told him we was going to the woods on Salt, where the crittur abounds, and where he might get wind of him, that he smashed his rum-keg, and agreed to go with us."