Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/236

 to summon us to join in the pursuit and extirpation of these detestable foes.

"Your uncle, whose alacrity and vigour age had not abated, eagerly engaged in this scheme. I was not averse to contribute my efforts to an end like this: the road which we had previously designed to take in search of my fugitive pupil, was the same by which we must trace or intercept the retreat of the savages: thus two purposes, equally momentous, would be answered by the same means.

"Mr. Huntly armed himself with your fusee—Inglefield supplied me with a gun: during our absence the dwelling was closed and locked, and your sisters placed under the protection of Inglefield, whose age and pacific sentiments unfitted him for arduous and sanguinary enterprises. A troop of rustics was collected; half of whom remained to traverse Solebury, and the other, whom Mr. Huntly and I accompanied, hastened to Chetasco.

" was noonday before we reached the theatre of action: fear and revenge combined to make the people of Chetasco diligent and zealous in their own defence. The havoc already committed had been mournful; to prevent a repetition of the same calamities, they resolved to hunt out the hostile footsteps, and exact a merciless retribution.

"It was likely that the enemy, on the approach of day, had withdrawn from the valley, and concealed themselves in the thickets between the parallel ridges of the mountain. This space, which, according to the object with which it is compared, is either a vale or the top of a hill, was obscure and desolate: it was undoubtedly the avenue by which the robbers had issued forth, and by which they would escape to the Ohio: here they might still remain, intending to emerge from their concealment on the next night, and perpetrate new horrors.

"A certain distribution was made of our number, so