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Whar is she, capt'n! Oh, take me to her! I'll fall on my knees. I'll axe her a thousand times to pardon me. 'Twar the Injun's fault. I'll swar it war the Chicasaw. She's been the cuss o' us both. Oh! whar is Marian? I love her more than iver! Whar is she?" "Patience!" I said; "you shall see her presently. She must be down the valley, among the Indian women. Mount your horse, and follow me!"
She aint just that she's more white than Injun; her mother only war a half-blood o' the Chicasaw nation, that used to belong in these parts." "Her name?" "It war Marian Holt. It are now Stebbins, I s'pose! since I've jest heerd she's married to a fellow o' that name." "She has certainly not improved her name."
Not with much grace, I feared; at all events, not till she should hear what I had to say. The ambiguous and ill-timed appearance of the Chicasaw, combined with the sinister and dramatic incident which followed, must have produced on her mind eccentric and erroneous impressions.
Fortunately it was so: else in another instant warning would have been too late, and the vengeful Chicasaw would have launched herself upon her unconscious victim. The huntress faced round on hearing the cry. She saw the approaching danger; and, with the subtle quickness of that Indian nature common to both, she placed herself in an attitude of defence. She had no weapon.
I did not for a moment entertain the idea that it was the Chicasaw he had seen; and yet my comrade was fully impressed with the belief, and reiterated the assertion that he had either seen Su-wa-nee or her "shadder." Though the thing was improbable, it was not beyond possibility. We knew that there were Indians travelling with the train: we had heard so before starting out.
With a wild scream the Chicasaw bounded forward and dealt the stroke; but, by a dexterous sleight, the huntress received it on the serape, and the blade glanced harmlessly aside. We hurried onward to get between them; but at that moment a third combatant became mingled in the fray, and the safety of Marian was secured.
They would have killed him afterwards, but for the interference of the Chicasaw, who, by some means, had gained an ascendancy over the Red-Hand! In the breast of this desperate woman burned alternately the passions of love and revenge. The former had been for the time in the ascendant; but she had saved the captive's life, only in the hope of making him her captive.
"It is false, sir. You know not, perhaps, that I was myself witness of his base treachery. I saw him " "What you saw was a mere accidental circumstance; nor was it of his seeking. It was the fault of the Chicasaw, I can assure you." "Ha! ha! ha! An accidental circumstance!" rejoined she, with a contemptuous laugh; "truly a rare accident! It was guilt, sir.
"Do you not observe anything odd in their species?" "No," said Basil. "I think I have seen them all before. There are mulberry-trees, and black walnuts, and Chicasaw plums, and pawpaws, and Osage orange, and shell-bark hickories, and pecans, and honey-locusts. I see no others except vines, and those great magnolias. I have seen all these trees before."
Wingrove had learnt from the wretched Chicasaw that there were a hundred men with the Mormon train. It was idle, therefore, to think of carrying her off by force. That would have been sheer quixotism only to end fatally for all of us. And was it not equally idle to dream of an abduction by stealth? Verily, it seemed so. How were we to approach this Mormon host?
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