Waboose. Her mother sat on a bank near her, looking
very pale and worn.

Attick, who still carried his gun in the hollow of his left arm,
expressed well-feigned surprise at seeing us.

"Big Otter seems to be on the war-path," he said, "but I have seen no
enemies."

"Big Otter's enemy stands before him," returned our leader, sternly.
"Attick has been very foolish. Why did he run away with the daughter of
Weeum the Good?"

"Attick scorns to run away with a squaw. Waboose agreed to go with him
on the hunt. There she is: ask her."

This was a bold stroke of the wily savage. Instead of flying from us,
he pretended to have been merely hurrying after a band of buffalo, which
was said to be moving southward, and that he had halted in the chase for
a short rest and food. This plan he had hastily adopted, on perceiving
that it was impossible to escape us, having previously warned Waboose
that he would shoot her dead if she did not corroborate what he said.
But Attick was incapable of believing that fearless heroism could dwell
in the breast of a woman, and little knew the courage of the daughter of
Weeum the Good. He mistook her silence and her downcast eyes for
indications of submission, and did not doubt that the delicate-looking
and shrinking girl was of much the same spirit as the other women of his
tribe.

Great, then, was his astonishment when he saw the Saxon blood in her
veins rush to her fair brow, while she gazed at him steadily with her
large blue eyes, and said--

"The tongue of Attick is forked. He lies when he says that the daughter
of Weeum agreed to follow him. He knows that he carried her from the
camp by force against her will."

Attick had thrown forward and cocked his gun, but happily the unexpected
nature of the girl's reply, and the indignant gaze of her eyes, caused
an involuntary hesitation. This did not afford time for any one to
seize the intending murderer, but it enabled me hastily to point my
rifle at the villain's head and fire. I have elsewhere said that my
shooting powers were not remarkable; I missed the man altogether, but
fortunately the bullet which was meant for his brain found its billet in
the stock of his gun, and blew the lock to atoms, thus rendering the
weapon useless.

With a fierce shout he dropped the gun, drew his scalping-knife, and
sprang towards Waboose, or--as I had by that time found a pleasure in
mentally styling her--Eve Liston.

Of course every man o