isfactory out of their strange
guide.

Before sunset they had penetrated some distance into the Sawback range,
and then proceeded to make their encampment for the night under the
spreading branches of a lordly pine!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Tables are frequently turned in this world in more senses than one. As
was said in the last chapter, the romantic pair who were in search of
the Indians did not find those for whom they sought but as fickle
fortune willed it, those for whom they sought found _them_. It happened
thus.

Soon after the Rose of Oregon and her young champion, with their
captors, had passed through the Long Gap, crossed the plain, and entered
the Sawback Hills, they fell in with a band of twenty Indians, who from
their appearance and costume evidently belonged to the same tribe as
their captors. From the manner in which they met also, it seemed that
they had been in search of each other, and had something interesting to
communicate, for they gesticulated much, pointed frequently to the sky,
and to various directions of the compass, chattered excitedly, showed
their brilliant teeth in fitful gleams, and glittered quite awfully
about the eyes.

They paid little attention at first to their prisoners, who remained
sitting on their steeds looking on with interest and some anxiety.

"O Betty, what would I not give to have my arms free just now! What a
chance it would be for a bold dash and a glorious run!"

"You'd make little of it on such rough ground, Tolly."

"Pooh! I'd try it on any ground. Just fancy, I'd begin with a clear
leap over that chief's head--the one there wi' the feathers an' the long
nose that's makin' such hideous faces--then away up the glen, over the
stones, down the hollows, shoutin' like mad, an' clearin' the brooks and
precipices with a band o' yellin' Redskins at my tail! Isn't it enough
to drive a fellow wild to be on the brink of such a chance an' miss it?
I say, haven't you got a penknife in your pocket--no? Not even a pair
o' scissors? Why, I thought you women never travelled without
scissors!"

"Alas! Tolly, I have not even scissors; besides, if I had, it would
take me at least two minutes with all the strength of my fingers to cut
the thongs that bind you with scissors, and I don't think the Redskins
would stand quietly by and look on while I did it. But what say you to
_me_ trying it by myself?"

"Quite useless," returned Tolly. "You'd be caught at once--or