the dark mountain line before him, broke his fast, | hunter examined these unusual marks, his dog drank water from a little noisy brook, stretched suddenly fixed his attention. A short distance himself upon a bed of leaves, and with Sharpnose, down the ooze of the spring, at a spot where the with whom he had shared his supper, for sentinel, slept the sleep of a way-worn man who puts his cares away from him. CHAPTER IV. fine thread of running water issuing from it, gained firmer ground and was arrested in a small basin, Sharpnose stood with his nose fixed to the earth. His hair was bristled along his back, and he gave alternately a sharp bark and a long melancholy howl. On reaching this spot, Carper found blood, and The dawn of the following day found Carper what he took to be the impress of a man's body up, and preparing to resume his journey. He again stretched at length upon the ground. There were ate of his jerked beef, denying a share of it now marks, too, which the intelligent hunter was not to his dog, whose powers of nose it was necessary slow to conjecture had been made by a wounded that he should carefully preserve, drank of the man struggling up, and dragging himself away brook, and continued upon his way. A mile from from a spot where he had, for some time, been ly the spot where he had slept, he came upon a place ing. Along the course of these signs were a few a good deal trampled, and showing here and there scattered grains of parched corn. Sharpnose presthe tracks of horses. A little examination showed ently left the blood, and went cautiously trailing him that two horsemen, and several men on foot down the stream. Carper followed him, finding had come in from the north and joined the party, the forest growth more open as he advanced. He whose course he had followed, at this point. Car- had left the spring a few hundred yards behind him, per at once guessed the truth. The Indians, too when a rifle cracked from the top of a fallen pine wary to extend their depredations in the Lost River tree a little before him, and a bullet whistled past valley, had begun to grow bolder as they drew his head. The "spit" of flame and fine wreath of nearer to the Alleghaney wilderness--a region even smoke caught his eye in the incomplete light of at the present day as wild as the highlands of Or- the morning, and he was about to fire in return, egon and a part of their number had diverged when Sharpnose dashed into the pine top. In a down the South Branch, and fallen upon the set- moment the head and shoulders of an Indian aptlements in the direction of Romney. The near-peared. The dog had fastened upon him, and he est settlement was Jacob Vanslaken's, and Carper struggled to use his tomahawk. As quick as thought conjectured that the homestead of this sturdy the white hunter fired at the Indian's breast, and Dutchman had been the point of attack, and the the struggle of man and dog ceased. Presently scene of recent bloodshed and robbery. He had the dog came out from the pine. Carper, who had no close friendship with any of Jacob's household, taken shelter behind the nearest tree and reloaded, and his own anxieties were clinging enough, but advanced, and breaking away some of the boughs, he gave a stern gesture of hand and head, as his drew the body of his enemy from its hiding place, imagination rapidly drew the scenes of this proba- and placed it upon the leaves of the open forest. ble tragedy a husband slain on his hearthstone- The body was that of a powerful Indian, longa wife carried away captive-their little children limbed, sinewy, and full-chested. The rifle ball brained against the cabin lintels. These were had entered the centre of the breast, and passed imaginations to sharpen the edge of his war-knife. out at the back, a little on one side of the spine. But he found matter of hope too in the midst of his conjectures of these things. The new outrages would muster the hunters of the South Branch and swell the pursuit. "I trust in God," he said, "that in robbing Vanslaken's house, they have set fire to it, and made it blaze as high as the mountains, for news, and a brag, to the valley men. With myself nosing close on the trail, and the South "Thank you,” replied the single-minded hunter, Branch rifles coming on after me, and the Lost River" pretty well." But in addition to this wound, was a very singular “I guess what you mean," said Carper, “but I am not feeling for your scalp-lock. What made the hurt on your head?" party heading in at the Youheganey Springs, Nelly The Indian caught his hand from the wound upon has too good a chance for a reasonable man to fall which it was resting, and looked him wistfully in in his spirits about her." With such reflections the face. he kept upon his way. Following a wide and hoofmarked trail, he shortly came to a spring whose swampy ooze had killed the vegetation for some space around it. Near this spring there seemed The Indian endeavored to answer, but from his to have been some delay and trouble on the part of weakness, or his small stock of English, or both, the Indians; bushes were broken, and the ground Carper caught no sound nearer to an intelligible was deeply dinted by horse-hoofs. Whilst the reply than "devil-horse." This he construed to mean that the man had been in some way hurt by corruption, when it is the result of an attempt to a stolen horse. His mind ran on for a few moments in the train of this conjecture. "Ah!" he said to himself, "if the rascals have carried off Vanslakens' black stallion, he will give them the devil-sure enough." This horse was widely known as a fierce and vicious brute. Carper dropped the conjecture, however, and endeavored to gain from the Indian some knowledge of the movements of his party. “Tell me," he said, "how many hours towards the great mountain,” and he aided his speech with his hand, "have your men carried the white girl?" The Indian seemed to understand him, but instead of answering, closed his eyes, dropped his hands, and assumed a look of death-like languor. Presently he roused himself again. Perhaps he intended this pantomime as an answer to the hunter's question. Carper seemed to take it for one. "He wishes to tell me," he muttered, "that he has been past keeping count of the hours." But if the sinking away into languor was assumed as a dumb show of answer to the hunter's question, it was presently followed by marks of a real and fatal lethargy. Death came on rapidly. Carper disarmed by the condition of the dying man, and somewhat softened by his apparent gratitude for so slight a favor as that of leaving his scalp-lock upon his head, addressed him in an apologetic strain. speak the English word "brother;" but to my ears, certain associations redeem it, and make it very touching. It was with the good German word, of like signification, and sound, upon his lips, that the last of the royal knights, Gustavus Adolphus, fell from his saddle on the field of Lutzen. And who does not remember the "mein bruder" of the student of Weisenberg, as, throwing down his pistol, he flew to embrace the friend whom jealousies had alienated, but at whose heart he could not aim for "the haze, which old kindly recollections brought before his eyes?" John Carper straightened the dead man's limbs, placed his rifle, knife, tomahawk. and pouch of corn by his side, and led by a purpose which gave no time for more than this simple care of the dead, resumed his journey. The horse-tracks rendered the trail clear from the point at which the Indian parties had united, and Carper followed it without difficulty, and rapidly. Sharpnose seemed to consider his functions at an end for the present, and made no effort to assist his master, but jogged on contentedly before. For some ten miles the hunter held upon his way without interruption, and, at the end of this distance, the dog became again eager and excited. In fact, man and dog had reached the camping ground of the Indians. The spot which they had selected was in the centre of a "If I had known that you were already half kind of basin made by spurs of the Alleghaney. dead, I think it possible that I should not have shot The mountain projections almost surrounded the you. But I was justified; and as a reasonable In-hollow; the only gap in their circuit was a narrow dian you must admit it. Bullet for bullet is good one through which a slender stream from a mounlaw; and you did your endeavor to shoot me. How-tain-spring escaped, making a humming noise, as ever if you were the most infernal rascal that ever it leaped the sandstones, or gurgled in narrow came over from the Muskingum or Hockhocking passes under them. This break in the rim of the I would leave you with your scalp on your head, mountain basin was on its southern side. The fires your rifle, tomahawk, knife, and pouch of parched which the Indians had kindled were still smouldercorn by your side, and straighten your limbs de-ing, and the footmarks were as fresh as if just cently. You have a religious notion about all this made. In fact the party could scarcely be two sort of thing, that is no doubt unreasonable; but it is of no use to argue it with a man three quarters dead, and who can't understand my language." The Indian looked gratefully into Carper's face. muttered "broder," and in a few minutes, without farther attempts at speech, died. hours in advance; and Carper felt no little satisfaction, when, by this discovery of the campingground, he assured himself that five of the seven or eight hours by which, at first, the Indians led him, had been overcome by his greater speed. He examined carefully to ascertain, if possible, how The word "broder" is, to be sure, a barbarous Nelly had been permitted to pass the night, or so *John Carper was singularly merciful to the poor devil much of it as her captors had passed at the camp. who, measuring his deeds by his wild conscience, had done He found at the distance of some twenty steps no wrong. An Indian shot by an old man named David from the circle immediately about the fire, and on Morgan, on the Monongahela, was treated very differently. the side of the hollow opposite to its outlet, a bed "On the report of Morgan, a party went out from the fort of dry leaves, and hemlock branches, and the imand found the Indian at one hundred yards distant from the scene of action, hid in the top of a fallen tree, where he press of a human form sunk deeply into it, as if the had picked the knife out of his body, after which had come occupant had been nearly covered by the uprising out parched corn, &c., and had bound up his wound with of the light material on each side. A hare never the apron aforesaid; and on the first sight he saluted them left a snugger "form" in a bunch of meadow grass. with "How do, do, broder? how do, do, broder?" But The length of the impression was less than the alas' poor savage their brotherhood to him extended only usual manly stature, and there was the wide presto tomahawking, scalping, and, to gratify some peculiar feelings of their own, skinning him, and they have made sure of skirts, instead of more definite marks of drum-beads of his skin." Kerchival. Appendix. the lower limbs; from which the hunter was not slow to assure himself that the little Quakeress, or A basin of rock catches the waters, below, and at least one of her sex, had here found a bed. There was nothing to show that her captors had used any other constraint with her than that imposed by her position at the side of the walled hollow most remote from the outlet, and the customary maintenance of watch. After Carper had made these examinations, which he did with no little feeling-for what lover ever scrutinized such dainty traces of his mistress without emotions of tenderness--he seated himself and meditated upon his future course. transmits them to other basins which descend in a series to the natural level of the valley. These basins are eternally shaded, and kept even in a twilight gloom by immense umbrella-topped evergreens, chiefly hemlocks, and the cold soil around them is entirely without undergrowth. The foot of this cascade, and the descending basins, I may as well say for the benefit of the trout fisher, abound in mountain trout of great size, perfect firmness, and unimpeachable flavor. CHAPTER V. Carper stood upon the rocks, over this forest waterfall, which flashed and foamed in the light of the sun, (by this time near its setting,) and looked beyond into the valley dotted with glades. For some time no animate nature seemed to stir in the scene; but at Carper had a good knowledge of the country last he saw a troop of nine elk* sweep across one about him, having hunted in it, and he took for of the largest of the glades at a brisk gallop. He granted that the Indians would ascend the Alle- could discover nothing to explain this flight of the ghaney at a place some miles to the south--the elk; but at once conjectured that they were runnearest point of practicable ascent to horsemen. ning from hunters of the Indian party. Below and On entering the hollow, indeed, he had seen the before him, down Blackwater run, he saw, at the tracks of horses leading out of it and tending in a distance of nearly a mile, a rugged, isolated hill, southerly direction. What course the party would rising on one side with a gradual ascent dark with pursue, after gaining the Alleghaney levels, was pines, and on the opposite presenting a precipitous now matter of reflection. He at last made up his surface to the stream. He determined to avail mind that their course could scarcely reach farther himself of this hill as a post of farther observation. south than the difficulties of the mountain compell- Followed by his dog, he let himself down through ed, and that after gaining its ridge, a bend to the the laurels of the mountain side, reached the shade north corresponding with the present southern one, of the hemlocks, followed the stream, gained the would be made, and a line of direction taken to- hill, and climbed to its top. He found here an adward Horseshoe and Blackwater runs-tributaries mirable hiding-place. Laurels grew in abundance of Cheat River. Such a course would bring the amongst large masses of sandstone, and roofed in party to the head of Youheganey, which he had the chambers which these, lying loosely at some appointed as the destination of the party to be gath-feet apart, made, and the pine trees growing on ered, and sent on by Joshua Blake. In accordance that side of the hill up which he had come, affordwith these views, he determined to give up the ed with their tops that dark back-ground which, in trail of the Indians, climb the mountain at once, woodcraft, is reckoned so useful in perfecting the and either get before them, or resume the trail on hunter's concealment from his game. Carper hid the levels. I need not say in detail how he car- himself between two squares of rock, near the ried this plan into effect. We join travel with him edge of the precipice above the run, and arranging again, many miles westward from the Indian camp- the laurel so that he could see, without being seen, ing ground-in fact upon the rocky highlands over- looked carefully out. A glade of about an acre, looking the valley of Cheat River. The hunter extended from the other bank of the stream; and had reached a rocky point, from which his view beyond this the forest gave way in many places to took in a wide range of country, chiefly covered patches of grass, glimpses of which might be caught with forest, but spotted here and there with grassy as the light wind moved, here and there, the screen glades. He overlooked the southern termination of boughs. The hunter had scarcely run his eye of the natural meadows of the Alleghaneys. Very over this broken scene of trees and grass, when he near him, but not at all fixing his attention, was a heard what he at first took to be the bleat of a work of nature which, when this wilderness has fawn. Presently, upon a repetition of the sound, been rendered penetrable to the world by good roads, and endurable by good inns, will draw crowds to admire its daring and novel beauty. Blackwater run, a considerable stream to bear the humble name of run, after winding sluggishly along the mountain levels, takes a leap from a rocky ledge, down a precipice of two hundred feet, unbroken in the descent except by one step of rock, which drives it at a rebound into a second great curve. he became sure that it was a decoy bleat. This imitation of a fawn's cry is made with an instrument like the mouth-piece of a clarionet; or, in some cases of extraordinary imitative powers of the voice, without such aid. The echo of the second bleat had not died away, when a doe came bound The elk is still found, I have good authority for believing, in this singularly wild portion of Virginia-of course in small numbers. ing into the glade, with her flag up, and stood for that even the companions of the murderer were an instant looking eagerly about her. A shot was taken by surprise. The Quakeress uttered a sharp fired from a thick part of the wood, and the poor cry, and covered her face with her hands. Girty dam, drawn by love and care for her young, gave advanced with a clouded face and spoke to the Ina few leaps and fell. Carper had seized his dog dian, who, tearing the scalp from the boy's head, by the muzzle, at the first sound of the bleat, and fastened it to his belt, and, making no reply, joined still held him, whilst witnessing what followed. the rest of the party. Presently he made a short An Indian came from the wood, unsheathed his speech, with a great deal of mouthing and gesticuknife, cut the throat of the deer, and stood watch-lation, and the nodding heads and grunted responing to see it die. Carper raised his rifle, but a ses of his audience showed that he had satisfied moment's reflection enabled him to look upon the them of the propriety of what he had done. This breast of the red hunter, as his blanket parted and final judgment given upon the homicide, the resdisplayed its swell-as fair a mark as temptation pectable judges seemed to forget it. As for Carever put in the way of a rifleman-with a quiet per, he determined that when the time came for and patient eye. A few minutes convinced him of letting his presence be known by the crack of his the wisdom of his forbearance. A second Indian rifle, its first bullet should crash into the skull of came into the glade. The two proceeded to butch- the murderer. With this resolution, he took paer the doe. They were engaged at this work when tience, and afraid to expose himself too much, the main body of the Indians came in sight. First nestled amongst his rocks and kept his dog came a strong athletic young warrior mounted upon quiet. He had noted well the ornaments of the a showy black horse, which the hunter recognized, cruel warrior-a plume of eagle's feathers, and a at a glance, as the vicious stallion of Vanslaken, the broad stripe of white paint running like a bar sinDutchman. The toilsome journey, or the skill and ister obliquely across his face from top to bottom. strength of the rider, had subdued the brute into a By twilight the Indian party had hobbled the two quiet gait. A little in the rear of this first horse- horses, made a fire, cooked and eaten a great part man, came Girty, a slim, dark-skinned, and eager- of the venison, and as the supper ended, the white eyed youth, mounted upon a pony; behind him hunter, resuming his observation, saw Girty gather with one arm about his waist, sat Nelly Blake. boughs, and make a bed for the Quakeress; it was Bundles were fastened about both horses. Behind, placed thirty or forty yards off, down the run, out in no particular order, came eight Indians on foot, of view of the party about the fire, and the halfand trudging heavily in the rear of these, with a breed seemed to make it with much care. Carper bundle of immense size weighing him down, came recollected having seen the arm of the Quakeress the boy Tobe. No prisoner seemed to have been about Girty's waist, as she rode behind him, and brought from the settlement of Vanslaken. The that recollection coupled with the character of his party stopped in the glade, and made preparation present labor for her, excited more of ill-blood tofor passing the night. Nelly was made to leap ward the youth, than of gratitude for services from behind Girty, and now stood in full view of which, doubtless, rendered Nelly's condition one of Carper. Her face bore an expression of resolu- less hardship. As he brooded, with something altion, but was somewhat pale, in spite of moun- most as savage as jealousy in his humor, over these tain air and travel. She seemed to watch care- things, he saw Nelly, after listening to some words fully, and obey readily, the signs of her captors, from Girty, steal away to her little bower of fraand to meet the dangers of her situation with grant branches, and there clasping her hands, turn a brave, but wise spirit. The boy Tobe, an un- her face upward, dim in the gloaming, as if she couth, overgrown lad of fourteen, foot-sore and prayed to God for succor. A twitch of emotion nearly dead with performing the part of Issachar to moved his features, and then tears came to his these wild Ishmaels, did not endure his lot with so eyes. much sagacious fortitude. Stumbling on, to the edge of the glade, he threw his load down, and seating himself beside it, began to weep bitterly. He was presently roused from this condition by an The Indians, when the Quakeress had left them, order, followed by a blow over the shoulders, to get gathered around their fire and began an earnest wood for building fires. The boy, instead of obey-consultation. They kept this up for an hour, and ing, tarned, caught the stick with which he had then one of their number assuming the post of been struck, and with a sullen, dogged manner, watch, the others stretched themselves upon the kept his seat. The Indian who had given him the grass, and wrapped in their blankets, fell asleep. order, released his hold upon the stick, caught his The sentinel did not leave the circle, but merely tomahawk, and, without an instant of hesitation, sat upright in it, with his feet to the blaze. drove the edge of it into the boy's skull. Poor Tobe fell like a calf under the axe of a butcher. This tragedy was begun and ended so suddenly, 66 "I will lead you safely back, Nel, out of these dangers," he said within himself, or never will I see Lost River again." Carper had seen the black horse moving in the direction of a patch of grass, which lay, as he had noticed before getting into his hiding-place, behind a projection of the hill; the patch of grass was depths of utter dejection. In the midst of her beyond the run, and out of view from the Indian wakeful grief she heard a dull noise like the hum camp-fire. This, with the fortunate locality of ming of honey-bees, but never guessing that the Nelly's bed, also out of view, suggested to his mind lips of John Carper made the familiar sound, she a plan of escape which promised very well. He gave no heed to it. Presently the shrill cry of a became seized with a fury of confidence and de- katydid followed the murmur of the bees. This light, as he turned the chances, arising from locali- was a note of the pleasant evening music, which ty, over in his mind-chances such as he could she had been wont to listen to, in the pensive hoscarcely have dared to hope would so soon present mors of her girlhood; the fine chirp, one of the themselves. He determined to leave his post on hunter's most effective imitations, reminded her all the hill by the way he had ascended, so soon as the more tenderly of her distant home, at the woodthe moon should have gone down, make a circuit, ed mountain-base, whose shades were so sonorous, drag himself along the ground to Nelly's side, of summer nights, with the treble of this cicala of awake her gently, conduct her away noiselessly. our groves, but it did not induce her to lift her head and by a circuitons course, to the patch of grass from its position. Then followed the creaking where the black horse fed, cut his hobble, nount with the Quakeress behind him, and, striking north, ride for life toward the springs of the Youheganey. If the party from Lost River should have reached the Youheganey all would be well; if not, then he would continue on to the house of William Crawford, who had established a strong settlement at the Great Meadows, many miles farther north. Once mounted, he was sure that the speed and sounds, rather than the singularity of any one of strength of the black would defeat pursuit. The principal peril, in this scheme, seemed to be in the difficulty of waking his mistress without noise; but he trusted to her courage and his own gentleness of approach. As for the danger of his dog's betraying him, Sharpnose, in spite of his obstreperous conduct in the case of the turkeys, would trail all day at his master's heels, and crouch like a lurcher at the simplest signal. notes of a hearth cricket, and again the sum of her home-turning fancies received an addition. A pause in the hunter's performance followed the cessation of the cricket's cry. After a little, however, she heard the merry chuckle, and spinning hum of wings, with which the humming bird feeds amongst the bell-shaped flowers of the Housecreeper. The combination of so many familiar them in such a locality, induced her to rise a little in her nest and look over its edge. Had the very insects mustered and followed on, like some little army in fairy tales, to minister consolation to her! She saw a dark object crouching low to the ground. "Nelly!" whispered a voice, hush-hushfor God's sake. I am John Carper." 66 The girl's heart leaped, and her eyes started in their sockets; the faintest possible cry half escaped her lips. It was so faint that the prattle of the neighboring stream must have drowned it to any one not very near. "If it is thee, John Carper," whispered the poor girl slowly, and in mingled love, hope, and terror, "let me see thy face, or hear thee speak some signal." "Will you run away to Morefield, Nel, to the lean parson, and be my dear little wife?" This allusion to a past conversation assured the Quakeress fully. 66 Surely," she said, "the God in whose name thee just now conjured me to be silent, has sent thee to save me, a poor child, and not deserving of the risk to thy safety. Let me feel thy strong in my weak one." It was not long before the hour came for putting this plan into effect. The moon, trembling through a slight cloud, paled her fires, and at last went down, leaving nothing but a dim wake of light, to linger among the distant tree-tops. Carper left his post, awaiting, for doing so, a murmur of the light and capricious wind, that the rustle of the laurel leaves might not be heard by the Indian watch. He escaped into the more open ground of the pines and descended. He passed near the patch of grass toward which the stallion had been feeding, and found that he had reached it. The horse pricked his ears, but permitted the hunter to approach him. The bridle was still upon him, with the reins drawn up into loops about the head-stall, and it now occurred to Carper to fasten the animal to a tree. This he did, and, having done it, fell Her lover not only granted this moderate request back, increased the sweep of his circuit, crossed but took her fairly into his arms, and, with a noisethe run more than a hundred yards below the In- less sort of blubber, kissed her mouth, cheeks, dians, and with great caution began creeping and forehead, and eyes, with so continuous a fervor dragging himself along the ground, in the direction that the poor girl was in some danger of having of Nelly's sleeping place. the latter kissed out. In the stout, and somewhat The Quakeress was lying upon her bed of leafy coarse, hunter, the passion of love, even in circumbranches, with one round arm for pillow to her stances of such peril, partook of the ridiculous; in cheek. She was wide and sadly awake; no longer the girl, honest and, if country-bred, still gentle under the eyes of her savage captors, she gave free and full of the grace which belongs to all beauty, it flow to her tears, and was indeed sunk into the rose into earnest poetry. hand |