hers. The apparel of which he had at first divested her, to
ornament his own person, had been restored, piece by piece; and this,
together with the change in his manner, had at length been observed by
the child, with feelings of gratitude. Poor little thing! to whom could
she look for protection now? Her father and mother were dead--had been
murdered before her own eyes--her brother was away, and she herself a
captive to an almost merciless foe; could she feel other than grateful
for an act of kindness, from one at whose hands she looked for nothing
but abuse and death? Nay, more: So strange and complex is the human
heart--so singular in its developments--that we see nothing to wonder
at, in her feeling for the savage, under the circumstances--loathsome
and offensive as he might have been to her under others--a sort of
affection--or rather, a yearning toward him as a protector. Such she did
feel; and thus between two human beings, as much antagonistical perhaps,
in every particular, as Nature ever presented, was already established
a kind of magnetic sympathy--or, in other words, a gradual blending
together of opposites. The result of all this, as may be imagined, was
highly beneficial to Rosetta, who, in consequence, fared as well as
circumstances would permit. At night she slept unbound beside Oshasqua,
who secured her from escape by passing his brawny arm under her head,
which also in a measure served her for a pillow. So slept she on the
night in question.

With Younker and Reynolds there was little that could be called
sleep--the minds of both being too actively employed with the events
which had transpired, and with thoughts of those so dear to them, who
had been left behind, for what fate God only knew. Besides, there was
little wherewithal to court the drowsy god, in the manner of their
repose--each limb being strained and corded in a position the most
painful--and if they slept at all, it was that feverish and fitful
slumber, which, though it serve in part the design of nature, brings
with it nothing refreshing to the individual himself. To both,
therefore, the night proved one of torture to body and mind; and bad as
was their condition after the encampment, it was destined to be worse
ere the gray dawn of morning, by the arrival of Girty and the only two
Indians who had escaped the deadly rifles of the Kentuckians.

"Up, warriors!" cried the renegade, with a blasphemous oath, as he came
upon the detachment. "