The shade and freshness of the woods was most grateful and the tangle of well laden blackberry bushes in a more open space beguiled me to stop and pluck some of the fruit. The spring found, I looked about for signs of game, but seeing none, propped my rifle against a tree, laid flat down upon my chest, and buried my face in the limpid sweetness of the pure, cool water. I drank till satisfied, then fell to dreaming. The same scenes under different aspects came to me always in my day visions, or night dreams—pictures of home, recollections of my childhood, and occasionally some scenes from those few weeks of dissipation in Philadelphia, with Nelly's witching face, swimming, amidst my memories. But I liked the home scenes best, and next to seeing them in the flesh, was the happiness of closing my eyes, and conjuring up visions of my mother, of Jean, and of Ellen.
What a glad day it would be when, Ellen having been found, and our country's independence won, Thomas and I could go home and settle down to peace and happiness!
Peace and happiness! Would it be ours after all, so long as Aunt Martha set herself, in her narrow bigotry, to persecute Ellen? so long as there was estrangement between husband and wife, mother and son in my uncle's family? So tenderhearted was my mother, so loyal to her sister, that even we could not be a happy family while there was discord and unhappiness in Aunt Martha's—for mother was our happiness barometer, and the family atmosphere went up or down with her feelings. But mother should adopt Ellen, and we would make her happy, and Aunt Martha ashamed of her harshness and the narrowness of her religion.
Then and there I vowed a new crusade. I must be a soldier always, fighting upon one arena or another for some principle of human liberty—for the love of liberty and a fervent zeal for it had, from long meditation and some sacrifices in its cause, gotten into my blood, and become a part of my nature. When this war against autocratic rule should be ended I would take my stand by Mr. Jefferson, and give all my time and energies to the brave fight he was making for entire and universal religious liberty. Deeper and deeper had I plunged into the trackless wilderness of my own thoughts, till I was lost to consciousness of the place, the hour and myself.
Perhaps I had been dimly conscious of some slight movement in the bushes behind me—afterward I remembered being subtly disturbed by it, and of lifting my head to listen—but the first sounds that really aroused me were the short explosion of a rifle, followed, almost instantly, by the whistle of a bullet cutting its way through the still air, and then, scarcely a second later, a wild weird whoop, close beside me, which caused me to spring to my feet, and turned me in its direction, as if I had been an automaton. There, beside the tree, against which I had leaned, was stretched the quivering body of a dying Indian. One hand still grasped a tomahawk, while the other clutched frantically at the leaves and grasses. A last quiver and he was still, his set eyes staring into the branches, rustling softly above him.
It was all a mystery to me. Where had the Indian come from? Who had shot him? I stood an instant gazing down upon the still savage in dumbfounded amazement, then took my rifle and started back to the men in search of an explanation of it all. Presently I overtook Givens' foster son, who was hurrying forward as fast as he could. I caught up with him, halted him, and asked if he had shot the Indian. He did not answer, and only pulled his cap farther over his eyes. I took his rifle, and looked into the bore of it; it was warm, empty, and smelled strongly of powder.
"Givens," I said planting myself before him, and holding out my hand, "you have just saved my life, doubtless. Won't you let me thank you?"
The beardless lips of the lad, about all I could see of his face under his wide brimmed cap, curved into a half smile, and he said, in muffled voice, his head still on his chest:
"The savage had just poised his tomahawk for a blow when I saw him."
"You acted most promptly," I answered; "he might have brought a whole tribe down upon us, so that you have perhaps saved the entire band, as well as Donald McElroy." I continued to talk, to praise his coolness, readiness, and marksmanship, and to repeat my thanks, but I got no more out of the lad and it was so evident that I embarrassed and annoyed him that presently I walked on and left him to follow. He seemed affected with a painful shyness, and apparently preferred solitude to the most flattering society.