of the woods you, that don't know a pin from a powder horn!" rejoined
the undaunted Mrs. Younker, in a vehement tone: "You'd kill me for using
the freedom of tongue, as these blessed Colonies is this moment fighting
for with the tarnal Britishers? You'd kill me, would ye? Well, it's jest
my first nateral come at opinion, as I tolled Ben here, not more'n a
quarter o' an hour ago, that you war jest mean enough for any thing, as
ever war invented, in the whole univarsal yarth o' creation--so ef you
do kill me, I won't be in the leastest grain disappinted, no how."

"Don't, Dorothy--don't irritate the savage for nothing at all!" said her
husband, who, raising his head at the first remark of the Indian, now
saw in his fierce, flashing eyes, angry gestures, and awful contortions
of visage, that which boded the sudden fulfillment of his threat: "Don't
irritate him, and git murdered for your pains, Dorothy! Why can't you be
more quiet?"

"Don't talk to me about being quiet, Benjamin Younker, away out here in
the woods, a captive to such imps an them thar, with our house all burnt
to nothing like, and our cows and sheeps and hosses destructed, and--"

Here the speech of the good woman was suddenly cut short by the whizzing
of a tomahawk past her head, which slightly grazed her cheek, and lodged
in the tree a few feet beyond. Whether it was aimed at her life and
missed its mark, or whether it was merely done to frighten her, does not
appear; though the manner of the savage, after the weapon was thrown,
inclines us to the latter supposition; for instead of rushing upon her
with his knife, he walked deliberately to the tree, withdrew the
tomahawk, and then turning to her, and brandishing it over her head,
said:

"Squaw, still be! Speak much, me killum!"

Be the design of the Indian what it might, the whole proceeding
certainly produced one result, which nothing had ever been known to do
before--it awed to silence the tongue of Mrs. Younker, just at a moment
when talking would have been such a relief to her overcharged spirit;
and merely muttering, in an under tone, "I do jest believe the
ripscallious varmint is in arnest, sure enough!" she held her speech for
the extraordinary space of half an hour.

Meantime the other savages finished their repast; and having offered a
portion of it to the prisoners, which the latter refused, they proceeded
to destroy their fire, by casting the burning brands into the rushing
waters of the