The Indian was much interested by the recital, and told her that he had loved her the minute he laid eyes on her, and would marry her if she would return with him to his home, which adjoined the Cornplanter Reservation, in Warren County. “I will marry you right away if you will accept.”
Pressed and harassed on all sides, and hungry as well, Ernestine, looking up into the handsome face of the redman, capitulated. Closing up her scanty belongings in the shabby portmanteau, she went down to the landlady and settled her bill in full out of a “Double Eagle” which Abram gave her, and then the pair quickly left the building. The gunshop was locked, and dark, the veteran of the Royal Americans and the smith had forgotten all about their Indian friend and gone their ways regardless.
They soon found the leading hotel stand, where they enjoyed a good supper and learned of a preacher who would marry them.
Just as they were about to leave the tavern the stage from Reading and Stitestown pulled in, horses and running gear all spattered with mud and slush. Among the first to clamber out was old Solomon de Kneuse and his wife, but they gave them the slip in the darkness and confusion.
At the manse, after the ceremony, the clergyman mentioned that his brother was to be a juryman the next day at the trial of Nitschman, the highwayman, who had held up and robbed the aristocratic McAfee family on the road to York Springs. “May he pay dearly for interfering with quality,” he added, seriously.
Ernestine hung her head; she understood now why it was she had been unable to see her lover since she came to the town; he had been in jail, and perhaps she was stung with some tiny feelings of remorse to have renounced him so quickly. However, necessity knows no law, but she thought she knew her man.
Before daybreak the newly married couple were ensconced in the stage bound for Northumberland and Williamsport, and in due course of time reached their future home, just across the river from Corydon.
None of the other Indians returned for several weeks. When they did, they were miserable looking objects from drink, and Abram half blamed himself for not looking after them, but love had blinded him to everything else. He provided a comfortable home for his bride, and as an agent for the Holland Land Company, mingled with respectable people, who were considerate to his wife. Among these were the family of Philip Tome, that indomitable Indian-looking Nimrod, author of “Thirty Years a Hunter,” whose prowess in the forests of Northern Pennsylvania will never be forgotten while memory of the big game days lasts.
Ernestine was really happy, and did not aspire to any different lot. Though she was fearless, she hated to be left alone when her husband was absent on inspection trips, and he generally managed to have an Indian boy or girl–one of the O’Bails or Logans–remain with her when he was away.
In due time his handsome Spanish-type rifle, with its stock inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver, like the gun of some Moorish Sheik, reached him, and of it he was justly proud, partly because it was the instrument of his meeting Ernestine.