The Rescue.
While the men at "Mount Pisgah" were planning how to deliver Viola from her captors, Mart Spink, father of Susanna, the girl with the wonderful eyes, was down with a severe chill in his cabin among the hills. Cold shivers ran up and down his back, as though a lizard shod with ice were making a playground of it. Then the cold struck his head, and his teeth began to chatter worse than if he were climbing "Greenland's icy mountains." Soon his whole body was in a frigid state which made him cry out for bedclothes, and more bedclothes, and still more blankets and quilts. He shook so with his chilly sensations that the bedclothes above him were in perpetual motion, and the mattress under him was agitated with the motions of his body. Then came on the terrible fever, which was worse than the chill, as the pain of fire is harder to bear than the cold of ice. Poor Spink seemed to be burning up. A dreadful headache seized him, which was only a little relieved when his wife applied cloths wrung out of cold water to his forehead. After some hours came the great sweat, which saturated his night shirt and a portion of his pillow and bedclothes.
This attack was so violent it bordered on a "congestive chill," which the settlers knew to be very dangerous. His wife waited upon him all night, not wishing to keep the children up, and in the morning he was very weak and she much worn.
Susanna rose early and took the pail to milk Brindle. What was her surprise to find the barn door open, and when she looked into the building she saw that their young horse, Chester, was missing. He had pushed the barn door ajar and disappeared. She dropped her pail, ran into the house, and told her mother the news. Mrs. Spink thought it best to inform her husband of the occurrence, though he was still quite ill.
Spink spoke from his bed: "That hoss has prob'ly went back to his old hum. You'uns knows I bought him of a feller away back on de knobs. Sum one must go find 'im. I can't go, nuther can yer ma. Elmiry an' the boys must do the chores. So, Susanna, you must get Maud out'n de barn, an' go after de hoss. It's a long trip, an' I'm sorry ye hav ter go. Take a snack (food) with yer, fer ye'll git hungry."
Susanna replied: "Don't be troubled, pa. I can ride as good as a man. I will gladly go, and try my best to find Chester." Her marvelous eyes shone with a brilliant light, and in a few minutes she was gone.
The girl's quest for the horse might have reminded her of Saul's search for his father's asses, had she been better acquainted with the Bible. As Saul failed to discover the animals, but found a kingdom, so the maid did not find the horse, Chester, but discovered a startling situation.
Her way led by Zibe Turner's cabin, then to the knob, and along its side, ever up toward the former home of the horse. When she had nearly reached the top she came to the little open space containing the hut in which Viola LeMonde was imprisoned.