In all this long journey Acashee had not been alone. Sometimes she had found food in her pathway, which she supposed had been dropped by some family of careless husbandry, but which had been purposely left by the secret emissary of the Sacos, who never lost sight of her in all her journeying. When she slept, often and often a keen eye watched her slumbers, and scared away the deadly reptile or hungry beast watching for its prey and hushed the bark of the fox or the howl of the wolf through the night-watches.
Even the keen ear of the savage woman failed to detect this stealthy follower ever in her track. She had turned aside carefully from all Indian villages, conscious that her dishonored locks would expose her to insult and danger, except to those acquainted with her cruel and haughty spirit, and who would appreciate the story of her captivity and final escape. Reverent as well as watchful of his charge, the scout was faithful to the letter of his embassy, and not only preserved her from danger, but, with a wise forecast, provided as best he could for her comfort.
On one occasion he even carried his protection beyond ordinary limits, for seeing her reel and sink to the earth from exhaustion, and fearing she might not reach her destination, he snared a rabbit in her pathway, and left cooked beans and corn slightly concealed under pine boughs, as if stored for the use of a hunter or trapper. These he saturated with the juice of a well-known narcotic, sure that a long and refreshing slumber would ensue.
Nor was he disappointed. Acashee eagerly availed herself of the hidden viands, and slept long and well, to go onward when she awoke with renewed vigor.
Arrived at the Androscoggin village, the duty of the scout was incomplete till he should learn the destination of the war-party evidently making preparations for a march.
As the chiefs of the Androscoggins sat around the council-fire that night, and listened to the story of the woman—the silence undisturbed save by the heavy roar of the falls, now pouring in one continuous thunder-roar, and now suspended as by a lack of the freightage of water—a pause like a human breath—and then bursting into its never-ending diapason of sublime melody—there might have been seen, prone upon the ground, a lithe, slender form, and a keen ear, that lost not a word of all their plans, and a pair of bright eyes exulting in the knowledge he had gained of all the movements designed.
When Acashee left the council, she did not retire to the wigwams that were offered her, but waving her hand, forbidding the women to follow, she descended the banks of the river to the foot of the falls, known to the Indians by the name of Pejipscot, and in our day as Lewiston Falls.
We must pause briefly and describe this most beautiful region—beautiful in our day even, notwithstanding the majestic falls have been subjected to the uses of the mill and factory. The river Androscoggin is a wild, coquettish nymph, now moving in stately grace amid embowering trees, and now bending into abrupt and startling curves, and anon plunging over headland rocks in one vast sheet, to sport again amid soft savannas and placid bays, once the mooring-place of Indian canoes when the tribes were bent upon some deadly enterprise.
In our day these warm and fertile slopes give place to cultivated farms, from whence arise the rural sounds of flock and herd so grateful to the spirit, and that primitive blast of horn, winding itself into a thousand echoes, the signal for the ingathering of a household.
Cliffs, crowned with fir, overhung the waters; hills rising hundreds of feet cast their dense shadows quite across the stream; and even in our day, the slim canoe of the Indian may be seen poised below, while some stern relict of the tribes sits motionless therein, and gazes upward to the ancient sites of his people, and recalls the day when, above the Falls of Pejipscot, a populous village sent up its council-smoke day and night, telling of peace and the uncontested power and sway of his tribe.