CHAPTER VIII.

THE INDIANS AND THEIR PRISONERS.

While the events just chronicled were enacting in one part of the
country, others, of a different nature, but somewhat connected with
them, were taking place in another. In a dark, lonely pass or gorge of
the hills, some ten miles to the north of the scene of the preceding
chapter, where the surrounding trees grew so thick with branches and
leaves that they almost entirely excluded the sunlight from the waters
of a stream which there rolled foaming and roaring between the hills and
over and against the rocks of its precipitous bed, or, plunging down
some frightful precipice, lay as if stunned or exhausted by the fall in
the chasm below, mirroring in its still bosom with a gloomy reflection
the craggy steeps rising majestically above it--in this dark and lonely
pass, we say, was a party of human beings, to whom the proper
development of our story now calls us.

The company in question was composed of eight persons, five of whom were
Indians of the Seneca tribe;[5] the others--a thin-faced, gaunt,
stoop-shouldered man past the middle age--a rather corpulent, masculine
looking woman, a few years his junior--a little fair-haired, blue-eyed,
pretty-faced girl of six--were white captives. Four of the Indians were
seated or partly reclining on the ground, with their guns beside them,
ready for instant use if necessary, engaged in roasting slices of deer
meat before a fire that had been kindled for the purpose. The fifth
savage was pacing to and fro, with his rifle on his arm, performing the
double duty of sentinel and guard over the prisoners, who were kept in
durance by strong cords some ten paces distant. The old man was secured
by a stick passing across his back horizontally, to which both wrists
and arms were tightly bound with thongs of deer skin. To prevent the
possibility of escape, both legs were fastened together by the same
material, and a long, stout rope, encircling his neck, was attached to
a tree hard by. This latter precaution, and much of the former, seemed
unnecessary; for there was a mild look of resigned dejection on his
features, as they bent toward the earth, with his chin resting on his
bosom, that appeared strongly at variance with any thing like flight or
strife. His female companion was fastened in like manner to the tree,
but in other respects only bound by a stout thong around the wrists in
front. The third member of the white party, the