Page:Nattie Nesmith (1870).pdf/89

 for this, they would have compelled her to walk, and bear her share of the burdens. The old squaw got rather jealous, seeing the pale-face so favored, and declared that she should do double work, to pay for this present ease, when they reached their own wigwam.

Nattie was unconscious of the fate in store for her, and unaware of the changes which she had undergone since she fell into the hands of her captors. The night of the Indians' arrival home, as they had no longer any reason for wishing to keep her asleep, the drug was not administered, and Nattie awoke. But so utterly wild and strange was the scene around her, that the poor child could not believe that she was really awake and in possession of her reason. She almost feared, for a moment, that she had passed through death and had awoke in the world of bad spirits, where, she had heard Biddy say, wicked children go when they die. That circle of swarthy figures, sitting on the dirt floor, around a smoking fire, laughing