With a dreadful, chilling horror at his breast, he sprung to his feet, looked around and called out, "Katrina! Katrina! KATRINA!"
That voice penetrated far through the woods and reached the ears of her who was being carried so swiftly away in the grasp of the painted Comanche. She sought to reply, but the brute checked her utterance, and the shrieks died out into a gasping sob.
"What's up now?" demanded Crockett, awakened by the tumult of his comrade.
"God knows what's become of Katrina," was the despairing reply; "she has vanished, gone or been stolen."
"Maybe she's somewhere about," replied the Tennesseean, rousing himself.
"No; I am sure it was her calling to me that awoke me a few minutes ago."
"Then we oughter be on the move," added Crockett, leaping to his feet. "What direction did it come from?"
"Coming to me in my sleep, I can hardly tell; but it strikes me that it was from off yonder."
Crockett, led by some indefinable impulse, snatched up the bear-skin, and with it over his arm, sprung down from among the rocks into the woods below.
"We must take the trail," he added to the Texan, who had already discovered it on the ground, and answered: