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Page 61
"They did their duties--they have gone--God rest their souls, and give
peace to their bones!" and taking up a paddle, the noble old hunter
pulled steadily for the Kentucky shore in silence, followed by the other
boats in the same manner. There they landed, placed the canoes in
safety, in case they should again be needed, rekindled their fire, and
encamped for the night.
On the following morning, they set out upon their homeward journey;
where they finally arrived, without any events occurring worthy of note.
[Footnote 11: A hunter's phrase for taking sight.]
CHAPTER XII.
THE INDIANS AND THEIR PRISONERS.
As you ascend the Miami from its mouth at the present day, you come
almost immediately upon what are termed the Bottoms, or Bottom Lands,
which are rich and fertile tracts of country, of miles in extent, and
sometimes miles in breadth, almost water level, with the stream in
question slowly winding its course through them, like a deep blue ribbon
carelessly unrolled upon a dark surface. They are now mostly under
culture, and almost entirely devoted to the production of maize, which,
in the autumn of the year, presents the goodly sight of a golden
harvest. At the time of which we write, there were no such pleasant
demonstrations of civilization, but a vast unbroken forest instead, some
vestiges of which still remain, in the shape of old decaying trees,
standing grim and naked,
"To summer's heat and winter's blast,"
like the ruins of ancient structures, to remind the beholder of former
days.
On these Bottoms, about ten miles above the mouth of the Miami,
Wild-cat and his party, with their prisoners, encamped on the evening
the attack was made upon the renegade, as shown in the preceding chapter.
Possessing caution in a great degree, and fearful of the escape of his
prisoners, Wild-cat spared no precautions which he thought might enhance
the security of Younker and Reynolds. Accordingly, when arrived at the
spot where he intended to remain for the night, the chief ordered stakes
to be driven deep into the earth, some distance apart, to which the feet
of the two in question, after being thrown flat upon their backs, in
opposite directions, were tightly bound, with their hands still corded
to the crossbars as before. A rope was next fastened around the neck
of each, and secured to a neighboring sapling, in which uncomfortable
manner they were left to pass the night; while their captors, starting
a fire, threw themselves upon the earth around it, and soon to all
appearance were sound asleep.
To the tortures of her older companions in captivity, little Rosetta
was not subjected; for Oshasqua--the fierce warrior to whom Girty had
consigned her, in the expectation, probably, that she would long ere
this have been knocked on the head and scalped--had, by one of those
strange mysterious phenomena of nature, (so difficult of comprehension,
and which have been known to link the rough and bloody with the gentle
and innocent,) already begun to feel towards her a sort of affection,
and to treat her with great kindness whenever he could do so unobserved
by the others. The apparel of which he had at first divested her, to
ornament his own person, had been restored, piece by piece; and this,
together with the change in his manner, had at length been observed by
the child, with feelings of gratitude. Poor little thing! to whom could
she look for protection now? Her father and mother were dead--had been
murdered before her own eyes--her brother was away, and she herself a
captive to an almost merciless foe; could she feel other than grateful
for an act of kindness, from one at whose hands she looked for nothing
but abuse and death? Nay, more: So strange and complex is the human
heart--so singular in its developments--that we see nothing to wonder
at, in her feeling for the savage, under the circumstances--loathsome
and offensive as he might have been to her under others--a sort of
affection--or rather, a yearning toward him as a protector. Such she did
feel; and thus between two human beings, as much antagonistical perhaps,
in every particular, as Nature ever presented, was already established
a kind of magnetic sympathy--or, in other words, a gradual blending
together of opposites. The result of all this, as may be imagined, was
highly beneficial to Rosetta, who, in consequence, fared as well as
circumstances would permit. At night she slept unbound beside Oshasqua,
who secured her from escape by passing his brawny arm under her head,
which also in a measure served her for a pillow. So slept she on the
night in question.
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