"Good. You will make a good wife for a warrior because your heart is strong. Must go; we drag you."
An Indian seized her by each hand and dragged her on. Seeing how powerless she was to resist them, she told Willimack that she would walk if they would not touch her, and kept up boldly until nightfall, when the savages paused and made a camp in a deep hollow, surrounded by heavy woods. He gave her food from his scanty store—cracked corn and dried venison, with water from the running stream hard by. She ate quite heartily, for the long walk had made her hungry. Willimack looked on with a calm smile while she ate, muttering to himself. When she had finished he took green withes and made her sit down at the root of a tree and tied her fast to the mossy trunk. He had hardly done so when one of the men, with a low chuckle, drew from his bosom a huge bottle which he had stolen from the stockade, and flourished it above his head.
"Ugh!" grunted his companions in chorus. "Obisenay somet'ing got, eh?"
"Fire-water! Wa-wa!" replied Obisenay.
The lucky finder lifted the heavy bottle, and a musical gurgle followed. When he lowered it there was quite a difference in the weight, and he passed the bottle to the chief.
"Good?" demanded Willimack.
"Much good," said Obisenay. "Drink."
Willimack did as he was requested, and drank quite deeply. The others followed, and the heavy bottle passed round the circle. A curious scene followed. A man who has never seen a number of Indians drunk has missed a remarkable scene. Seated in a circle, with the girl-prisoner in the center, they kept drinking at a rate which would have astonished a habitual drunkard among the whites, swaying their bodies to and fro, and giving utterance now and then to a short quick whoop as the liquor began to affect them. The bottle was quickly dispatched, and one of them, by a singular instinct, found out that he had purloined a similar one, and they took to this. Now they began to dance and howl, brandishing their hatchets and leaping wildly about among the trees, looking like demons in their war-paint. In the midst of the wild orgie an Indian came suddenly from among the trees and joined them. Willimack by this time was very drunk, but he had sense enough to see that a stranger had come among them. He was a tall, finely-formed man, painted for war, in the dress of a Huron.
Willimack advanced to meet him with stately gravity, reeling in his walk, and endeavoring to stand straight.
"How do, brudder?" he said. "Why you stand no still?"