"I know he does, or he would never have risked his life to save a stranger as he has just done."
Tom, from some cause or other, was obliged to gouge his eye several times with his crooked finger. One might have suspected that they were more moist than usual, had he not looked particularly savage at that moment. Dick, who, by the merest accident, glanced in his face was nearly startled off his feet by the irascible fellow shouting:
"What you looking at? Say! Can't a chap rub his eyes without your gaping at him that way?"
Dick meekly removed his gaze, while Tom looked ferocious enough to annihilate the whole party.
The girl, just rescued from the Shawnees, was a comely maiden. Though attired in the homespun garb of the backwoods, she would have attracted attention in any society. If not beautiful, she certainly was handsome, being possessed of a countenance rich with expression, and a form of perfect grace. Blue eyes, golden hair, a well-turned head, small nose and a health-tinted complexion, were characteristics to arrest the eye of the most ordinary observer. Even under disadvantageous circumstances like the present, these were so striking that they could but make an impression, and a skillful reader of human nature would have seen that Lewis had been touched—that, in short, the leader of the Riflemen of the Miami had reached the incipient stages of the passion of passions, in the short interview to which we have referred. That he would rather have been scalped than have been suspected of it by his companions, was very true.
Taking the small hands which were confidingly placed in his own, he said;
"Let us hear all about this scrape, my little one."
"My home is, or was until night before last, many miles from here. On that evening, I was left alone by my dearest friend, who little dreamed of the danger which hovered over our house. The Indians must have been aware of his absence, for, before it was fairly dark, three of them stalked in the door without saying a word, and led me away. They have traveled constantly ever since, and I was almost wearied to death, when you came up, and by the assistance of kind Heaven, saved me. How came you to be so interested in a stranger?"
"As for that matter," replied Lewis, "it ain't the first time, my little one, that we've been interested in strangers. I might say we've a particular interest in all the whites and reds of this region. The Riflemen of the Miami——"
"Are you the men who are known by that name?" asked the girl, with a glowing countenance.