"Somebody comin'."
"Hebens, golly! am it Injines?" asked Cato, looking around for some good place to hide. The eyes of the soldier and Miss Prescott asked the same question, and the Huron replied:
"Ain't Injins—walk too heavy—white men."
"They must be friends then," exclaimed the girl, springing up and clapping her hands.
"Dey're comin'—hear 'em."
The dull tramp, tramp of men walking in regular file was distinctly audible to all, and while they listened, a clear, musical voice called out:
"This way, boys, we've a long tramp before we reach that infernal Indian town."
"Your father, as I live!" whispered the soldier to the girl beside him. The next moment, the blue uniform of an officer of the Federal army was distinguished through the trees, and the manly form of Captain Prescott, at the head of a file of a dozen men, came into full view.
"Hello! what have we here?" he asked, suddenly stopping and looking at the company before him. "Why there's Lieutenant Canfield as sure as I am alive, and if that ain't my dear little daughter yonder, I hope I may never lift my sword for Mad Anthony again. And there's Oonomoo, the best red-man that ever pulled the trigger of a rifle, with a little pocket edition of himself, and grinning Cato too! Why don't you come to the arms of your father, sis, and let him hug you?"
This unexpected meeting with his loved daughter, when his worst fears were aroused for her safety, caused the revulsion of feeling in Captain Prescott, and his pleasantry is perhaps excusable when all the circumstances are considered. The tears of joy coursed down the gray-headed soldier's cheeks as he pressed his cherished daughter to his bosom, and murmured, "God bless you! God bless you!" while the hardy soldiers ranged behind him smiled, and several rubbed their eyes as if dust had gotten in them.