“I can,” replied Benton, with a look of fearful meaning. “In the wood, like a hawk on the watch, was the man who had sworn such deadly vengeance upon your head. His heart leaped for joy when he beheld the prattling child enter the shadows of the forest. He seized the little girl, your eldest joy, and carried her from the station. In the gloomy recesses of the forest he left her to die.”
“Oh! the heartless fiend!” cried the father, in agony.
“And think you that even this glorious vengeance satisfied him? No! He panted for more. Thirsted for it as the hungry wolf thirsts for blood to satisfy the cravings of its savage nature. You still had another daughter left. For years this human bloodhound hung about the station eager to rob you of the sole remaining joy that made your life happy. Time passed on; your daughter grew to womanhood, as fair a flower as ever bloomed on the banks of the Ohio. Patiently your foe waited. Chance at last gave the golden opportunity, and your daughter fell into his hands.”
“What?” cried the old man, horror-stricken and hardly able to believe the evidence of his senses.
“Your daughter is now a prisoner in his hands. A captive, helpless, in the Shawnee nation.”
“But is there no way to release her?” cried Treveling, in anguish. “I will pay any sum possible for me to procure.”
“If you could turn every drop of your blood into a golden guinea and spill them one by one from your veins your foe would laugh at you and bid you remember the hour when in this very glade you scarred his back with a lash,” replied Benton, fiercely.
“This man is a demon to seek such a vengeance!” cried Treveling, in despair.
“You are right, he is a demon,” replied Benton, bitterly. “Can you wonder at it? Is he not an outcast from all that makes life dear, a savage amid savages?”
“Is there no way to touch this man’s heart?”