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 Thus, this first crime was the more easily perpetrated and better escaped detection. Nor did a thought of doing such a deed enter the head of the old Indian, till he saw this girl fleeing wildly before him in the gathering darkness. The sight of her flight roused the wild love of pursuit in his savage nature, and almost before he was aware, he had swooped her up, and was bearing her rapidly away to his wigwam. Possessing the prize, he was determined to retain it, at all hazards; and he soon formed the resolution to make the pale-face girl the wife of his eldest and favorite son, Torch Eye, a brave young warrior, whose mother had been a white, and from the section of country in which the strolling Indians were now camping.

Thus poor, little, bad, foolish Nattie, running away from home to cause pain and trouble to her best friends, at once involved herself in trouble much greater than that which now pierced the hearts of those who were seeking her, sorrowing.