"You'll be all right agin in a few days," said Harry Smith. "Let's move on, as the day is getting well along."
"Oonamoo don't go furder—leave you here," said the savage.
"How is this? Come, go with us to the settlement and stay till your wound gets better," said Lewis.
All joined their entreaties, but it availed nothing. The savage had made up his mind, and it could not be changed.
"Can't stay—Shawnees, Delawares, all round—git much scalp in woods," and waving them an adieu, he plunged into the forest.
"Injin is Injin!" said Jim Smith; "you can't change his nature. The missionaries have had a hold of him, and made him an honorable red-skin, but they can't get that hankering after scalps out of him. Shall I tell you where he's going? He's going back: to the clearin' where them dead Injins are stretched, and intends to get their top-knots. I seen him look at 'em very wishful-like when we started away. He was too weak, and he didn't want to do it afore Edith, or he'd 've had 'em afore we left that place."
[The next time the Riflemen encountered the Huron, it was upon the war-trail, and full a dozen more scalp-locks hung at his girdle!]
Again the party moved forward, now with considerable briskness, there being no cause for tardiness or delay. Sego and Edith conversed in low tones, every look and action showing their perfect happiness, while the hardy leader of the Riflemen was as wretched an object as it is possible to imagine. They had progressed several miles, when, as they descended a sort of hollow, they encountered O'Hara, hurrying along as fast as the shortness of his legs would permit.
"Hello!" he exclaimed, suddenly halting. "Is the row done with?"
"Of course it is," replied Harry Smith.