She had been absent from the house little more than an hour, when, rounding a “point” of timber, which puts out from the creek about two miles below the farm, a cavalcade of twenty horsemen was seen, and at once recognized as Edgar’s company of rangers. Another body, about equal in number, was seen at the same time several miles to the west, but all attention was now directed toward the south, in expectation of the appearance of the rangers. The elder ladies smiled sedately, in memory of their own youthful days, and prophesied—
“He’ll not come with the company—you’ll see Jane and him coming up that path, after awhile.”
And the event justified the prediction—at least in part; for, on arriving opposite the little grove Edgar turned off, and directing his companions to ride on, put his horse to a gallop, and was soon within the shadows of the rendezvous.
A vine and a fallen tree, together, formed a pleasant seat; and here, when the skies were clear and the sunlight warm, he had often found her awaiting his approach. He sought the old place now, but she was not there!
“She must be out soon,” he muttered to himself; and springing to the ground, he assumed the seat which he had expected to find occupied. He was disappointed, and both his face and attitude betrayed it. He leaned his rifle against a tree and threw himself back to wait, patiently as he might, for what was not likely to come had he waited till morning! His eyes wandered vacantly over the scene for some minutes, when, suddenly springing up, he exclaimed—
“She has been here and gone away!”
A narrow strip of white muslin was hanging upon a thorn very near him—evidently torn from some article of female dress! It could not be a signal for him; only accident could have placed it there. She must have retreated in haste—and why? Such were the reasonings of the experienced ranger. He reached forward and took it off the briar; but, as he did so, his eye fell upon a far more ominous object! The same bush had retained a piece of red calico, fringed with green, and Edgar at once observed that it had come from the cape of a hunting-shirt such as the northern Indians wore!
It was enough! And yet, with the coolness characteristic of his race, the ranger stooped to the ground and calmly examined the records of a struggle. On each side of the rustic seat there was a single footstep, deeply indented among the leaves, as if two men had sprung suddenly from opposite directions to a common point. Then, in front of the seat, the twigs were broken and the ground was trampled—though but little, as if the struggle had been brief and feeble!
“No man could have been overpowered so soon,” he said; “and it must have been as I expected—she was alone.”
But even this conviction did not hurry him away. He carefully examined the ground in the neighborhood, and then, returning to the scene of the struggle, followed the trail, by those slight indications which none but a backwoodsman could have discovered, for several hundred yards to the westward. He thus ascertained these facts: That the actual captors were but two in number; that they had concealed their horses in a small thicket, some distance above the grove where the capture was made; that they had retreated in great haste, keeping within a ravine which drained the prairie; and that, at or near the thicket they had rejoined the main body of marauders, consisting of half-a-score of horsemen.