“Can’t you hold that tongue of your’n?” cried the scout, angrily. “I never saw such a thing to wag in my life. Stay behind if you want to, and make a dicker with the red-skins if you can. Pass me Susannah, Ned, I believe it was you that took her when I went up.”
“Who is Susannah?” inquired the Yankee. “I didn’t know that there was any lady here by that name. Oh! it’s yer rifle, is it? I swan, I never heard a gun called by that name afore.”
Each in obedience to the scout’s commands prepared to leave the cabin.
Hastily Mrs. Wilson and Ruth donned their outer garments so that in a measure they might be protected from the rain.
They could take nothing with them. All they possessed they must leave behind to the savages.
But they gave no thought to this. Could their lives but be spared they would be content.
A few moments sufficed to make them ready for their flight, and then the scout laid his hand upon the door and opened it a little way.
“Come,” he said, quickly. “The clouds are breaking and the rain will be over in a minute. We haven’t got a moment’s time to spare.”
He stepped out into the darkness, followed by Ned, who held the hand of Ruth in his own. Mrs. Wilson came next, and after her the Yankee with his pack upon his back. The settler came last, closing the door of his home behind him with a sad heart. It was not likely, he thought, that he would ever set foot over its threshold again. Once in the hands of the savages they would not leave it until it was a mass of blackened embers.
“Fasten it if you can in some way,” said the scout, in a whisper. “I don’t want them to know that we are gone, if they get here within the next ten minutes.”