She accordingly remained at home with the servants.
Two nights afterwards, when the darkness was almost impenetrable, a
large war-party of Shawnees suddenly attacked the place. The negroes
had no time for defense, and only sought their own safety in flight.
But one, however, escaped, the rest falling beneath the merciless
tomahawk. Mary Prescott was carried off a prisoner.
CHAPTER III.
OONOMOO AND THE SHAWNEES.
Through forty foes his path he made,
And safely reached the forest-glade.--SCOTT.
After parting from Hans Vanderbum, the Huron sped noiselessly through
the woods, taking a direction that would lead him to a point on the
river fully three hundred yards below where he had signaled the German.
The stream making a bend there, he would thus escape the observation of
the Shawnees along the bank, at the point where the fisherman had been
engaged in his labors.
So silent, yet rapid, was the motion of Oonomoo, that his figure
flitted through the rifts in the wood like a shadow. His head
projected slightly forward, in the attitude of acute attention, and his
black, restless eyes constantly flitted from one point to the other,
scarcely resting for a second upon any single object. In his left hand
he trailed his long rifle, while his right rested upon the buckhorn
handle of the knife in his belt.
He had progressed a considerable distance thus, when the Huron's gait
decreased very rapidly.
Pages:
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48