Her heartrending cries had so confused him, he was seized before he could raise his gun.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE ALARM.
Ambrose was pacing his log prison once more. The earth had been filled in, the hole in the floor roughly repaired, and now his jailers took turns in patrolling around the shack.
Imprisonment was doubly hard now. Day and night Nesis's strange cries of terror rang in his ears. He knew something about the Indians' ideas of punishing women. His imagination never ceased to suggest terrible things that might have befallen her.
"God! Every one that comes near me suffers!" he cried in his first despair.
The explanation of their surprise proved simple. Watusk and his crew, pursuing them in two dugouts, had seen the smoke of their fire from up the river.
They had landed above the point and, making a short detour inland, had fallen on Ambrose and Nesis from behind. Nesis had been carried back in one dugout, Ambrose in the other.
During the trip no ill-usage had been offered her, as far as he could see, but upon reaching the village she had been spirited away, and he had not seen her since.
His last glimpse had shown him her child's face almost dehumanized with terror.