But this I could not permit, so I, too, made a speech to them, saying:
"Yet must I put in my claim against Mr. Haller. Mistress Bampfyld is, indeed, his cousin, but to me she is more--she is my promised wife. Therefore, no matter who heads this party, I alone must go as the chief seeker after her. I would have saved her with my life last night had it been granted me to do so; I must claim the right to rescue her now, or to die in attempting it."
"Your promised wife!" poor Gregory said, looking mournfully at me. "Oh, Joice! Oh, Joice!"
But he alone was the one who did not heartily receive my statement, all the others shouting lustily "for the future Lady St. Amande," and saying that none was so worthy of such an honour as she.
"Nay," I said, "nay. 'Tis she who honours me by giving me her love, and therefore must I be the first to risk my life for her."
So it was agreed that we should set forth at once on the trail, there being many skilful trappers and hunters in the party who could take it up as easily as an Indian himself, while, for commander, there should be no one, each doing his best with the knowledge he possessed of the savages' habits. Of this knowledge I myself had none, yet was I recognised as the one most to be considered because I was the affianced husband of Joice, the "Virginian Rose," as I had heard her called ere now.
It needs not that I should set down aught that befel us on the expedition; I know now that my love has written a description of the journey she made. Nor is it necessary that I tell all that O'Rourke narrated to us of the arrival of Roderick St. Amande on the scene of slaughter after I was struck senseless, for that, too, you know. But, as he informed us of all that had transpired at that time, and as he told us that, had not it been for this execrable villain, there could be little doubt that Pomfret and all the countryside round would have been left as secure from attack by the Indians as it had been hitherto left for many years, the rage of all in our party was supreme and terrible.
"I hope," said one of the Pringles, uncle to the young man now a prisoner, as I learnt, "I hope that, if the gigantic chief you speak of is going to wreak his vengeance on the scoundrel, I may be in some way witness of it."
"And I! And I!" exclaimed several others. "If we could see that, or if they would but deliver him back into our hands, we would almost forgive them all that they have done for our houses and families."
Travelling quickly, urging the poor beasts that they lent us onwards as much as possible, walking by their sides to relieve them, and carrying sometimes the saddles ourselves so that they might have greater ease, we reached the spur of hills to which the trail had led us on the morning of the third day after the raid on Pomfret. Thus, as we knew afterwards, by not sleeping at night, or by sleeping only for an hour or so at a time, we had arrived at the very period when the exposure of Roderick St. Amande took place.