, and said:

"Tell me, dear Mary, of your captivity--of all that happened to you
since they took you from your home."

The girl proceeded to relate what is already known to the reader,
adding that but for the friendship of Hans Vanderbum and Oonomoo, she
never would have hoped to escape from her captivity.

"The Dutchman is a stupid, honest-hearted fellow, whose heart is in the
right place, and the Huron has endeared himself to hundreds of hearts
by his self-sacrificing devotion in their hour of affliction."

"What possible motive could influence him to risk his life in my
rescue?"

"His own nature. He has been with those holy men, the Moravians, and
he is, what is so rarely seen, a Christian Indian. But, he has been
thus friendly to the whites for many years. The Shawnees inflicted
some great injury upon him. What it was I do not know. I have heard
that his father was a chief, and, while Oonomoo was still a boy, he was
broken of his chiefdom, and both he and his wife inhumanly massacred.
This is the secret of his deadly hostility to that tribe, and, I am
told, that among the _scores and scores_ of scalps which grace his
lodge, there is not one which has not been torn from the head of a
Shawnee. But for a year or two, he has refrained from scalping his
foes, and he has killed none except in honorable warfare."

"Has he a wife and family?"

"He has a wife and son, and his lodge is deep in the forest, no one
knows where. Its location is so skillfully chosen that it has baffled
all search for years. His wife, I have been told, has been a sincere
Christian from childhood, and her piety and faithfulness have had a
good influence on him."

"He is a noble man, and my dear father will reward him for this."

"No, he will not. Oonomoo has never accepted a reward for his services
and never will. Presents and mementoes have been showered upon him,
but his proud soul scorns anything like payment for his services. Do
you suppose that _I_ could ever remunerate him for the happiness he has
brought _me_?" asked the Lieutenant, pressing the hand of his beloved.

"I am sure my joy is very great, too. Oh! how my dear mother and
sister must have agonized over this calamity."

"They probably have known nothing of it."

"But you say you saw the light of the fire, and you were fully as far
off as they."

"It is true, but I had not the remotest suspicion of its being your
home. It seems unlikely that your mother sho