But their uncertainty did not last long. Valentine all at once left the branch behind which he was concealed, and uttered a long, shrill cry, which was replied to with fearful yells.
"What is it?" Don Miguel asked.
"Unicorn!" Valentine answered.
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
COUSIN BRUIN.
Nathan's flight was discovered by a singular accident. The Comanches are no more accustomed than other Indians to have grand rounds and night patrols during the night, which are inventions of civilised nations quite unknown on the prairie. In all probability, the Indians would not have perceived their prisoner's disappearance till daybreak.
Nathan fully built on this. He was too well acquainted with Indian habits not to know what he had to depend on in this respect. But he had not taken hatred into calculation, that vigilant sentry which nothing can send to sleep.
About an hour after Nathan's successful ascent, White Gazelle, aroused by the cold, and more probably by the desire of assuring herself that the prisoner could not escape, rose, and crossed the camp alone, striding over the sleeping warriors, and feeling her way as well as she could in the dark; for most of the fires had gone out, and those which still burned spread only an uncertain light. Impelled by that feeling, of hatred which so rarely deceives those who feel its sharpened sting, she at length found her way through this inextricable labyrinth, and reached the tree to which the prisoner had been fastened. The tree was deserted. The cords which had bound Nathan lay cut a few paces off, while Gazelle was stupefied for a moment at this sight, which she was so far from expecting.
"Oh!" she muttered savagely, "it is a family of demons! But how has he escaped? Where can he have fled?"