“Has the pale-face’s council fire gone out, or are their braves turned squaws, that the foe enters the wigwam and steals their ‘Wild Rose,’ and no warriors start on the trail?”
“Do you know any thing of Rebecca Bray,” demanded Morris.
Yondeega’s eyes were open. Neddo’s trail and the Wild Rose’s trail were one.
George started. He knew that Edward Sinclair had two days previous, joined a hunting party; but he supposed that he had gone away to avoid being present at Rebecca’s nuptials. “The false-hearted villain!” said he, “I will follow him, and he shall yet feel the weight of my arm.”
“No, no,” said Yondeega, with a flashing eye and knotted brow. “No pale-face touch him. Yondeega’s tomahawk is sharp, and his rifle never fails it aim. Yondeega will kill him like a dog.” The features of the Indian then assumed an expression of sorrow. “Yondeega had a daughter; she was fair as the spring flowers, and cheerful as the song of birds. The Yengese came and spake with his forked tongue, the maiden listened, and her heart changed. She has left the wigwam of her tribe to follow the stranger.”
From this the young men gathered that Sinclair had been as false to his red as to his white friends, and having signified to the Indian that they would follow where he led, they set off in pursuit of the lost flower.
Rebecca had risen early, and was taking a short walk near the cottage, when she was seized and borne off by some Indians. They marched about eight hours, bearing Rebecca on a rude litter, until they came to a large sheet of water called Lake Winnipiseogee, where they embarked in a canoe and rowed to an island, on which stood two or three deserted Indian huts. In one of these, Rebecca was left, with two Indians. In a moment, the door opened, and Edward Sinclair, stripped of his Indian disguise, stood before her. He confessed that he had stolen her. But it was because he could not live without her, and he wanted to take her to Europe with him. In vain the young girl entreated, plead her attachment to another, and her want of affection for Sinclair.
“And do you think,” said he fiercely, “that I could bear to see you the wife of Morris Green? It was I who advised him to desert, and who attempted to prevent him from getting a pardon. But I will be revenged yet. In the meantime, you are in my power, and from this place you shall never go, except as my wife—”
The sound of light footsteps interrupted his words, and the next instant a young Indian girl, breathless with haste, rushed into the hut, exclaiming, “Fly, fly! the pale-faces are in pursuit.” Sinclair sprang forward, as if meditating flight; but a moment’s pause seemed to alter his intention, and he said, pointing to Rebecca, “Hide her, Yarro, and I will meet them here.”
The young Indian frowned, as she replied, “Yarro no hide her; pale-face no hurt her.” A deep-breathed curse escaped the young man, and a fierce glance shot from his eye; but the next moment it yielded to a mild, tender expression, as he spoke a few words to Yarro in her own tongue.