ual physical harm, so
long as the savages dream that the sparing of my life will yield them
profit. You have no right to remain in such peril as surrounds you
here, when by so doing you benefit no one. You have father and mother
awaiting in prayer your safe return to them yonder on the Maumee; while
I,--I have no one even to ask how sad my fate may be. Think you that
because I am a girl I must therefore be all selfishness? or that I
would ever permit you thus to sacrifice yourself unnecessarily for me?
No, no, Monsieur! I will remain prisoner to Little Sauk, for my sacred
word has been pledged; and you must go, because there are others to
whom your life is of value. Nor need you go empty-handed, for the one
you have sought so far and long seems now ready enough to travel
eastward with you."

Scarcely had her voice ceased, leaving me struggling to find fit words
to change her mad decision, when a rough hand flung back the entrance
flap, and the naked body of an Indian, framed for a single instant
against the light, lurched heavily through the opening. Even that
brief glimpse told me the man had been drinking to excess; while for
the moment, as I huddled down closer behind my robes, I was unable to
make out his identity.

"Where white woman?" he ejaculated gruffly, as he paused, blinded by
the darkness. "Why she not come help me?"

His quick ear evidently caught the slight rustle of the girl's skirt as
she rose hastily to her feet, for with a muttered Indian oath the
savage lurched forward. I could scarcely make out the dimmest shadow
of them in the dense gloom, yet I seemed to know that he had grasped
her roughly, though not the slightest sound of fear or pain came from
her lips.

"Ugh! better come!" he muttered, a veiled savage threat growling in his
tone. "You my squaw; cook in my lodge; get meal now."

"But where? and how?" she asked, her voice trembling perceptibly, yet
striving to placate him by a seeming willingness to obey. "I have
nothing here to cook, nor have I fire."

"Indian squaw no talk back!" he retorted angrily. "This way I show
white squaw to mind chief!"

I heard plainly the brutal blow he struck her, though even as she
reeled back she managed to stifle the scream upon her lips, so that it
was barely audible. With one bound I was over the barrier of robes and
clutching with tingling fingers for the brute. I touched his feathered
head-dress at last, and he must have supposed me his