“You’d make little of it on such rough ground, Tolly.”
“Pooh! I’d try it on any ground. Just fancy, I’d begin with a clear leap over that chief’s head—the one there wi’ the feathers an’ the long nose that’s makin’ such hideous faces—then away up the glen, over the stones, down the hollows, shoutin’ like mad, an’ clearin’ the brooks and precipices with a band o’ yellin’ Redskins at my tail! Isn’t it enough to drive a fellow wild to be on the brink of such a chance an’ miss it? I say, haven’t you got a penknife in your pocket—no? Not even a pair o’ scissors? Why, I thought you women never travelled without scissors!”
“Alas! Tolly, I have not even scissors; besides, if I had, it would take me at least two minutes with all the strength of my fingers to cut the thongs that bind you with scissors, and I don’t think the Redskins would stand quietly by and look on while I did it. But what say you to me trying it by myself?”
“Quite useless,” returned Tolly. “You’d be caught at once—or break your neck. And you’d never get on, you know, without me. No, no, we’ve got fairly into a fix, an’ I don’t see my way out of it. If my hands were free we might attempt anything, but what can a fellow do when tied up in this fashion?”
“He can submit, Tolly, and wait patiently.”
Tolly did not feel inclined to submit, and was not possessed of much patience, but he was too fond of Betty to answer flippantly. He therefore let his feelings escape through the safety-valve of a great sigh, and relapsed into pensive silence.
Meanwhile the attention of the band of savages was attracted to another small band of natives which approached them from the eastward. That these were also friends was evident from the fact that the larger band made no hostile demonstration, but quietly awaited the coming up of the others. The newcomers were three in number, and two of them bore on their shoulders what appeared to be the body of a man wrapped up in a blanket.
“They’ve got a wounded comrade with them, I think,” said little Trevor.
“So it would seem,” replied Betty, with a dash of pity in her tone, for she was powerfully sympathetic.
The savages laid the form in the blanket on the ground, and began to talk earnestly with their comrades.