Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/28

 even the sighing of the trees,—the night is so still! It would be less weird and terrible if any thing would cry aloud. But all nature seems to be waiting too.

A halloo from Richards—who comes stalking in, cross, wet, unsuccessful, and uncommunicative.

No—see nothin'. Knew I shouldn't see nothin'. All darned nonsense of the Cappen's sending me thar. Told him so w'en I started, that she hadn't gone that way, and I knew it as well as he did. Fired my rifle? Yes—fired every charge I had. Didn't have but five and fired 'em all. She didn't hear 'em; no, cos she wasn't there to hear 'em. Hain't you got a chaw of tobacco, Ransom, or give a fellow somethin' to drink. If you was as wet as I be, you'd think you wanted sunthin!"

Wait on, Eunice, wait on. Go back to your lair, and lie upon your couch. Do not listen to Richards's grumbling; try to keep down these horrible imaginings of struggles in water, of struggles with Indians, of faintness and death of cold. "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

Yes. Poor Eunice thinks all that out. "But is not this moment the very moment when my darling is dying, and I lying powerless here. Why did I not go with them?"

"Too-oo—too-oo—"

"Is that an owl "

"Hanged if it's an owl. Hark!"

"Whoo—whoo—whoo—whoo" repeated rapidly twenty times; and then again—"Whoo—whoo—whoo—whoo" twenty times more, as rapidly.

Ransom seized his gun, fired it in the air, and ran toward the sound. Eunice followed him, gazing out into the night.

" Whoo—whoo—whoo—whoo"—more slowly, and then Ransom's "Hurra! All right, ma'am. She's here," through the darkness.

And then in one glad minute more, he had brought Inez in his arms,—and her arms were around her aunt's neck, as if nothing on earth should ever part them more.

The White Hawk had brought her in.

And now the White Hawk dragged her to the fire, pulled off the moccasins that were on her feet, and began chafing her feet, ankles, and legs,—while Ransom was trying to make her drink,—and Eunice kneeling, oh, so happy in her anxiety, at the poor girl's side.

"The camp affords the hospitable rite,

And pleased they sleep (the blessing of the night),

But when Aurora, daughter of the dawn,

With rosy luster purpled o'er the lawn,

Again they mount, the journey to renew." —ODYSSEY.

WITH the first instant of relief, old Ransom bade Harry saddle the bay mare, which Ransom had never before been known to trust to any human being but himself. With an eager intensity which we need not try to set down in words, he bade him push the mare to her best, till he had overtaken the Captain, and told him the lost was found.

Meanwhile poor little Inez was only able to speak in little loving ejaculations to her aunt, to soothe her, and to cry with her, to be cried with, and to be soothed.

"Dear auntie, dear auntie, where did you think I was"—and

"My darling—my darling—how could I lose sight of you?"

And the White Hawk—happy, strong, cheerful and loving—was the one "effective" of the three.

But Ransom had not chosen wrongly in his prevision for her return. "Knew ye'd be cold w'en ye come in, Miss Inez; knew ye warn't drowned and warn't gone far." He had a buffalo skin hanging warming, ready for her to lie upon. He brought a camp stool for her head to rest upon, as she looked into the embers; and when Eunice was satisfied at last that no hair of her darling's head was hurt; when she saw her fairly sipping and enjoying Ransom's jorum of claret; when at last he brought in triumph soup which he had in waiting somewhere, and the girl owned she was hungry,—why then Eunice, as she lay at her side and fed her, and fondled her, was perhaps the happiest creature, at that moment, in the world.

And when words came at last, and rational questions and answers, Inez could tell but little which the reader does not already know, nor could they then learn much more from White Hawk, with language so limited as was theirs.

"Panther? yes, horrid brute! I have seemed to see him all night since. When it was darkest, I wondered if I did not see the yellow of those dreadful eyes."

"Apaches? No, I saw no Indians, nor thought of them. Only my darling 'Mary'