a word. No tear, no sob, nor sigh
escaped him; but he appeared to be continually on the watch to make
his escape. The soldiers who had taken him prisoner declared that they
had followed his track full forty miles before they came up to him.
From the rising to the setting of the sun they hurried on, and still
he was before them. Nikkanochee must then have been only about five or
six years old.

_Basil._ Why, I could not walk so far as forty miles to save my life.
How did he manage it?

_Hunter._ You have not been brought up like an Indian. Fatigue and
hardship and danger are endured by red men from their earliest
infancy. The back to the burden, Basil. You have heard the saying,
"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." When the soldiers came up to
Nikkanochee, he darted into the bushes and long grass, where they
found him. At first, he uttered a scream; but, soon after, he offered
the soldiers a peach which he had in his hand, that they might let him
go. Placed on horseback behind one of the troopers, he was brought to
the military station.

_Brian._ They have him now, then, fast enough. I wonder what became of
Econchatti-mico, his father.

_Hunter._ That is not known. I should have told you that, in the
Seminole language, "Econ," means hill or hills; "Chatti," is red; and
the signification of "mico," is king: so that Econchatti-mico is, all
together, King of the Red Hills. The soldiers who captured Nikkanochee
disputed among themselves whether he ought not to be killed. Most of
them were for destroying every Indian man, woman, or child they met;
but one of them, named James Shields, was determined to save the boy's
life, and it was owing to his humanity that Nikkanochee was not put to
death.

_Brian._ That man deserves to be rewarded. I shall not forget James
Shields.

_Hunter._ When Nikkanochee had afterwards become a little more
reconciled to his situation, he gave some account of the way in which
he was taken. He said, that as he was travelling with his father and
the Indians, the white men came upon them. According to Indian
custom, when a party is surprised, the women and children immediately
fly in different directions, to hide in the bushes and long grass,
till the war-men return to them after the fight or alarm is over. Poor
little Nikkanochee, in trying to cross a rivulet, fell back again into
it. Besides this misfortune, he met with others, so that he could not
keep up with the party. He still kept