martial music strains which waked their
watchfulness, and strung their iron frames. From their early youth had
they been always on the frontier, and therefore well practised in all the
subtlety, craft, and cunning, as well as knowing the ferocity and
bloodthirsty perseverance of the savage. They were therefore not likely to
be circumvented by the cunning of their foes; and without a desperate
struggle, would not fall victims to the scalping-knife.

On several occasions, small parties of warriors left the prairies and
ascended the Mount; at which times the scouts would hide in the fissures
of the rocks, or lying by the side of some long prostrate tree, cover
themselves with the sear and yellow leaf, and again leave their hiding
places when their uninvited visitors had disappeared.

[Illustration: A SHAWANESE WARRIOR.]

For food they depended on jerked venison, and cold corn bread, with which
their knapsacks had been well stored. Fire they dared not kindle, and the
report of one of their rifles would bring upon them the entire force of
the Indians. For drink they depended on some rain water, which still stood
in excavations of the rocks, but in a few days this store was exhausted,
and M'Clelland and White must abandon their enterprise or find a new
supply. To accomplish this most hazardous affair, M'Clelland being the
elder, resolved to make the attempt--with his trusty rifle in his grasp,
and two canteens strung across his shoulders, he cautiously descended to
the prairie, and skirting the hills on the north as much as possible
within the hazel thickets, he struck a course for the Hockhocking river.
He reached its margin, and turning an abrupt point of a hill, he found a
beautiful fountain of limpid water, now known as the Cold Spring, within a
few feet of the river. He filled his canteens and returned in safety to
his watchful companion. It was now determined to have a fresh supply of
water every day, and this duty was to be performed alternately.

On one of these occasions, after White had filled his canteens, he sat a
few moments, watching the limpid element, as it came gurgling out of the
bosom of the earth--the light sound of footsteps caught his practised ear,
and upon turning round, he saw two squaws within a few feet of him; these
upon turning the jet of the hill had thus suddenly came upon him. The
elder squaw gave one of those far-reaching whoops peculiar to the Indians.
White at once comprehended his perilou