han of a tigress infuriated by the
approach of hunters against the lair of her sleeping young. She grasped
the cord with unexpected strength, and her eyes flashed fire as they
wandered around, until they met those of the supposed half-breed, to whom
she called with tones of the most vehement indignation,--"Oh, father,
father! what are you doing? You won't give him up to the murderers? You
promised, you promised--"

"Peace, fool!" interrupted the man thus addressed, taking her by the arm,
and endeavouring to jerk her from the prisoner; "away with you to your
place, and be silent."

"I will not, father;--I will not be silent, I will not away!" cried the
girl, resisting his efforts, and speaking with a voice that mingled the
bitterest reproach with imploring entreaty, "you are a white man, father,
and not an Indian; yes, father, you are _no_ Indian; and you promised no
harm should be done,--you did, father, you _did_ promise!"

"Away, gal, I tell you!" thundered the renegade parent; and he again
strove to drag her from the prisoner. But Telie, as if driven frantic by
the act, flung her arms round Roland's body, from which she was drawn
only by an effort of strength which her weak powers were unable to
resist. But even then she did not give over her purpose; but starting
from her father's arms, she ran screaming back to Roland, and would have
again clasped him in her own; when the renegade, driven to fury by her
opposition, arrested her with one hand, and with the other catching up a
knife that lay in the grass, he made as if, in his fit of passion, he
would have actually plunged it into her breast. His malevolent visage
and brutal threat awoke the terrors of the woman in her heart, and she
sank on her knees, crying-with a piercing voice, "Oh, father, don't kill
me! don't kill your own daughter!"

"Kill you, indeed!" muttered the outlaw, with a laugh of scorn; "even
Injuns don't kill their own children." And taking advantage of her
terror, he beckoned to the Piankeshaw, who, as well as all the other
Indians, seemed greatly astounded and scandalised at the indecorous
interference of a female in the affairs of warriors, to remove the
prisoner; which he did by immediately beginning to drag him down the
hill. The action was not unobserved by the girl, whose struggles to
escape from her father's arms, to pursue, as it seemed, after the
soldier, Roland could long see, while her wild and piteous cries were
still longer brought