by
his side; and occasionally, when he saw her little limbs growing weary,
raised and bore her forward, for a considerable distance, in his arms.

It was a strange, but by no means unpleasing sight, to behold that dark,
bloodstained warrior--whose very nature was cruel and ferocious, and who
probably had never before loved or sought to protect aught bearing the
human form--now exhibiting such tender regard for a weak, trembling
prisoner, placed in his hands for a speedy sacrifice. It was withal an
affecting sight, to Younker and Reynolds, who looked upon it with
moistened eyes, and felt it in the force of a revelation from Heaven,
that He, who sees the sparrow fall, was even now moving through the
wilderness, and teaching one lesson of mercy at least to the most
obdurate heart of the savage race.

To the renegade, however, this conduct of Oshasqua was far from being
agreeable; for so much did he delight in cruelty, and so bitterly did he
hate all his race--particularly now, after having been foiled by them
so lately--that he would a thousand times rather have heard the dying
groans of the child, and seen her in the last agonies of death, than in
the warrior's arms. At length he advanced to the side of the Indian, and
said in the Shawanoe dialect, with a sneer:

"Is Oshasqua a squaw, that he should turn nurse?"

Probably from the whole vocabulary of the Indian tongue, a phrase more
expressive of contempt, and one that would have been more severely felt
by the savage warrior, who abhors any thing of a womanly nature, could
not have been selected; and this Girty, who understood well to whom he
was speaking, knew, and was prepared to see the hellish design of his
heart meet with a ready second from Oshasqua. For a moment after he
spoke, the latter looked upon the renegade with flashing eyes; and then
seizing Rosetta roughly, he raised her aloft, as if with the intention
of dashing her brains out at his feet. She doubtless understood from
his fierce movement the murderous intent in his breast, and uttered a
heart-rending cry of anguish. In an instant the grim features of the
Indian softened; and lowering her again to her former position in his
arms, he turned coldly to Girty, and smiting his breast with his hand,
said, with dignity:

"Oshasqua a warrior above suspicion. He can save and defend with his
life whom he loves!"

Girty bit his lips, and uttering a deep malediction in English, turned
away to consult with Wild