So saying, Captain Flint left his companions and returned to the cabin.
"Just as I thought," said Old Ropes, when the captain had gone, "if we don't look well to it this unlucky affair will be the ruin of us all."
CHAPTER II.
Carl Rosenthrall was a wealthy citizen of New York. That is, rich when we consider the time in which he lived, when our mammoth city was little more than a good-sized village, and quite a thriving trade was carried on with the Indians along the river, and it was in this trade chiefly, that Carl Rosenthrall and his father before him, had made nearly all the wealth which Carl possessed.
But Carl Rosenthrall's business was not confined to trading with the Indians alone, he kept what would now be called a country store. A store where everything almost could be found, from a plough to a paper of needles.
Some ten years previous to the time when the events occurred which are recorded in the preceding chapter, and when Hellena Rosenthrall was about six years old, an Indian chief with whom Rosenthrall had frequent dealings, and whose name was Fire Cloud, came in to the merchant's house when he was at dinner with his family, and asked for something to eat, saying that he was hungry.
Now Fire Cloud, like the rest of his race, had an unfortunate liking for strong drink, and was a little intoxicated, and Rosenthrall not liking to be intruded upon at such a time by a drunken savage, ordered him out of the house, at the same time calling him a drunken brute, and making use of other language not very agreeable to the Indian.
The chief did as he was required, but in doing so, he put his hand on his tomahawk and at the same time turned on Rosenthrall a look that said as well as words could say, "Give me but the opportunity, and I'll bury this in your skull."
The chief, on passing out, seated himself for a moment on the stoop in front of the house.
While he was sitting there, little Hellena, with whom he had been a favorite, having often seen him at her father's store, came running out to him with a large piece of cake in her hand, saying: