Davis, hoeing, hard by, also heard and dashed frantically into his hut, closing the door and barring it securely—right well did everyone of the time know what those dreadful war-whoops and blood-curdling yells foreboded!
Old Grey threw back her head and sniffed for a better scent with red, comprehending nostrils. Then, as a band of painted, half-naked savages, brandishing their tomahawks, rushed from the forest, she snorted and fled—her sparse tail high in the air, her heart stricken with fear.
On an eminence afar, she stopped and saw the wretches burst open the hut-door and drag her struggling master out. Binding him tightly, and securing everything that might be of use, they set fire to the hut and disappeared into the forest with war-whoops, taking Davis with them.
Old Grey waited sadly on the river-bank until hunger and loneliness induced her to return. Alas, the ruin that met her eyes!
A neighbor who had escaped the massacre of that day found her, wandering about in despair, and, thinking his friend Experience must have been burned in his hut or scalped, took the old mare to share such life as the pioneers of that day had to endure. When he went to live in Hanover, Old Grey went along, too.
One fine sunny day two years later, as she stood hitched in the old Meeting House yard, she felt a thrill, her heart began suddenly to beat faster, she looked around, disturbed in spirit for some strange, unknown reason.
At last she saw a man crossing the yard, and a moment later recognized her old friend Experience Davis!
Fearing he would pass without seeing her, she whinneyed, once-and-a-half, as had been her wont.
Davis stopped, glanced about, mystified, and was going on when she repeated her greeting, anxiously. At that he looked at her, sharply and curiously. Involuntarily he answered, with his old familiar whistle.
At sound of this Old Grey was so overcome with joy that she snapped her hitch-rein with a quick jerk, and trotted right up to him!