Great Spirit.
The young chief alone stood erect. He gazed at the round moon above
him, and sighs burst from his breast, and burning tears ran down his
stained cheek. Impatiently, by a motion of the hand, he directed the
savages to leave him, and when they withdrew he resumed his seat on
the fallen trunk, and reclined his brow upon his hand. One of the long
feathers that decked his head waved forward, after he had been seated
thus a few minutes, and when his eye rested upon it he started up
wildly, and tearing it away, trampled it under his feet. At that
instant the same "FATHER!" was again heard. The young chief fell upon
his knees, and, while he panted convulsively, said, in ENGLISH,
"_Father! Mother! I'm your poor William--you loved me much--where are
you? Oh tell me--I will come to you--I want to see you!_" He then fell
prostrate and groaned piteously. "Father! oh! where are you? Whose
voice was that?" said Mary, breaking through the slight incrustation
that obscured her, and leaping from her covert.

The young chief sprang from the earth--gazed a moment at the
maid--spoke rapidly and loudly in the language of his tribe to his
party, who were now at the place of encampment, seated by the fire
they had kindled--and then, seizing his tomahawk, was in the act of
hurling it at Mary, when the yells of the war-party and the ringing
discharges of firearms arrested his steel when brandished in the air.
The white men had arrived! The young, chief seized Mary by her long
flowing hair--again prepared to level the fatal blow--when she turned
her face upwards, and he again hesitated. Discharges in quick
succession, and nearer than before, still rang in his ears. Mary
strove not to escape. Nor did the Indian strike. The whites were heard
rushing through the bushes--the chief seized the trembling girl in his
arms--a bullet whizzed by his head--but, unmindful of danger, he
vanished among the dark bushes with his burden.

CHAPTER XII.

Joe's indisposition--His cure--Sneak's reformation--The pursuit--The
captive Indian--Approach to the encampment of the savages--Joe's
illness again--The surprise--The terrific encounter--Rescue of
Mary--Capture of the young chief--The return.

We return to the white men. The grief of Roughgrove, and of all the
party, when it was ascertained beyond a doubt that Mary had been
carried off by the savages, was deep and poignant. The aged ferryman
sat silent and alone, and would not be comforted