the principal
chiefs. The selection was a good one; for the woman, who was young, was
known in the tribe as the Fawn for her gentle disposition. She at once
led the captive away to her lodge, where she bade her sit down, offered
her food, and spoke kindly to her in her low, soft, Indian tongue. Ethel
could not understand her, but the kindly tones moved her more than the
threats of the crowd outside had done, and she broke down in a torrent
of tears.

The Indian woman drew the girl to her as a mother might have done,
stroked her long fair hair, and soothed her with her low talk. Then she
motioned to a pile of skins in the corner of the hut; and when Ethel
gladly threw herself down upon them, the Indian woman covered her up as
she would have done a child, and with a nod of farewell tripped off to
welcome her husband and hear the news, knowing that there was no
possibility of the captive making her escape.

Exhausted with fatigue and emotion, Ethel's sobs soon ceased, and she
fell into a sound sleep.

Of that terrible catastrophe at the Mercers' she had but a confused
idea. They were sitting round the table talking, when, without the
slightest notice or warning, the windows and doors were burst in, and
dozens of dark forms leapt into the room. She saw Mr. Mercer rush to the
wall and seize his pistols, and then she saw no more. She was seized and
thrown over the shoulder of an Indian before she had time to do more
than leap to her feet. There was a confused whirl of sounds around
her,--shrieks, threats, pistol shots, and savage yells,--then the sounds
swam in her ears, and she fainted.

When she recovered consciousness, she found that she was being carried
on a horse before her captor, and that the air was full of a red glare,
which she supposed to arise from a burning house. On the chief, who
carried her, perceiving that she had recovered her senses, he called to
one of his followers, who immediately rode up, bringing a horse upon
which a sidesaddle had been placed. To this Ethel was transposed, and in
another minute was galloping along by the side of her captor.

Even now she could hardly persuade herself that she was not dreaming.
That instantaneous scene at the Mercers',--those confused sounds,--this
wild cavalcade of dark figures who rode round her,--could not surely be
real. Alas! she could not doubt it; and as the thought came across her,
What would they say at home when they heard it? she burst into an agony
o