The redskins were only a few miles distant, and would reach the Gorge within half an hour at the most. As the two surveyed them a moment, the young hunter suddenly turned to the older one.
“Suppose Ward they make no halt but pass on through?”
“What of it? They won’t go far. More likely they’ll stop here and kindle their fires,” replied the guide, rolling his huge tobacco quid from one side of his cheek to the other.
“Don’t you wish to let the others know what is going on?”
“No; let them be; they’re sound asleep and better off than here. We can’t do any thing until after dark, when the time for work will be on us. Till then why we’ll just watch.”
The Apache party rapidly approached, and as they neared the Gorge they came down to a walk. By this time they were so near that their features could be distinguished, and the young hunter looked upon the pale face of the fair captive with strange emotions.
She was held by the giant Cherouka directly in front of him. One arm was thrown around her as if to keep her from falling, while with the other he attended to himself. Although he grasped her firmly, yet it was not roughly. It was that grasp with which we hold the being we are unwilling to give up, and yet which we love with all the fondness and affection that our whole nature can summon.
Florence was seated in the usual lady-like fashion, as if she were supported by the ordinary “side-saddle,” her long dress sweeping almost the length of the horse’s body and shrouding her own feet, and the moccasined limit of the wild Apache from view. Her long dark hair was streaming over her shoulders, her face was white and deathly, and there was a wild agonized look in her dark eyes, which ought to have moved the hearts of the brutes which surrounded her, but which, as may well be imagined, did not affect their sensibilities in the slightest degree.
O how the young hunter longed to raise his rifle as they came within range and send his bullet through the brain of the treacherous Apache. But he was too sensible a fellow to do any such thing, even if he had forgotten that he was under the orders of his older companion.
True to the prediction of the latter, they rode a short distance through the Gorge, and then turning a little aside, dismounted, and made their preparations for a night encampment.