"Run, run!" she kept saying. "Take care of little Polly! don't let go of little Polly!"
29. Nathaniel ran with little Polly; and on the way they met the young man, David Palmer, creeping along with his gun. He had got the news and had come to tell Florinda to hurry away. Just at that moment he heard the yells of the Indians and the sound of their clubs beating in the door.
30. He threw the gun down and went on just as fast as a man could in such a condition, and presently saw two Indians start from the house and run into the woods. He listened a moment and heard dogs barking; then crept round the corner of the house. The door had been cut away.
31. Florinda lay across the chest, dead, as he thought; and, indeed, she was almost gone. They had beaten her on the head with a hatchet or a club. One blow more and Florinda would never have breathed again.
David Palmer did everything he could do to make her show some signs of life; and was so intent upon this that he paid no attention to the barking of the dogs, and did not notice that it was growing louder and coming nearer every moment.
32. Happening to glance toward the door, he saw a man on horseback, riding very slowly toward the house, leading another horse with his right hand, and with his left drawing something heavy on a sled. The man on horseback was Mr. Moore. He was leading Mr. Bowen's horse with his right hand, and with the other he was dragging Mr. Bowen on Philip's hand sled.
33. Coming home from Dermott's Crossing, Mr. Bowen was taken sick and had to travel at a very slow pace. When they had almost reached home, they found Philip's sled among the bushes.
34. Philip himself had left the sled there. The day that he went to the Point, he had to wait for corn to be ground, which made him late in starting home. He heard a good many reports concerning the Indians, and thought that, instead of keeping in his own tracks, it would be safer to take a roundabout course back.
35. By doing this, he lost his way and wandered in the woods till almost twelve o'clock at night, when he came out upon a cleared place where there were several log huts. The people in one of these let him come in and sleep on the floor, and they gave him a good meal of meat and potatoes. He set out again between four and five in the morning, guided by a row of stars that those people pointed out to him.