The entire country between the Hudson and Delaware Rivers, replied Walter.
That is where I found you, and where you took your first lessons in surveying. Had Amy been in those parts, we would have heard of her. I am afraid, boy, that this will be a fruitless search. What reason have you for believing that she is in those parts?
Instinct—not reason, tells me that she is there. I have seen her on the mountain top surrounded with hawks, but protected by an aged and intelligent Indian.
At this remark, Webb’s countenance brightened. It was evident that old memories had awakened in his imagination. He was again surveying the Minisink country and taking the grand scenery of the Delaware Valley, and with confidence replied:
The mountain, the rocks and the hawks that you saw in your delirium, I have seen with my natural eyes. It is in the Minisink country, and the rocks that you describe are on the north side of the Delaware River, three miles west of Machackamack, and near the camp of the Cahoonshees, and the Indian you describe can be no other than Cahoonshee himself.
Cahoonshee! exclaimed Captain Davis and wife in the same breath. Why that is the name of the Indian that sailed from London to America with me over twenty years ago.
He promised to make inquiries about my lost boy. We landed him at the Palisades at sun-rise one morning, and that is the last I have ever heard of him.
I knew him well, replied Webb. He was the last of his tribe and lived on the Steneykill. The Cahoonshees were a small tribe, and lived on the mountains between the Neversink and Delaware Rivers.
And it is my determination to search that part of the Delaware Valley for Amy, replied Walter.