we. "One of the
Indians has escaped to give the alarm, and perhaps within this hour or
as soon as daylight, the whole tribe will be down upon us. Our only
hope for our own lives is in flight. Our horses may out-travel them if
they defer the attack until daylight. Fortunately for us the horses are
fresh and strong."

Hastily mounting in the darkness, with no light save the faint glimmer
of the stars, they plunged into the unknown wilds before them,
Whirlwind leading them as a guide. But instead of taking the direction
they had determined on after a long consultation the day before, they
mistook the route in their haste and the darkness, and fled north-west
of it; but they pursued their way in silence.

At last the welcome day broke, and halting to take a drink themselves
and water their horses, they remounted, and galloped rapidly through
the forest. In about two hours they came to the bank of a river, the
largest they had seen in their wanderings. Entering this in order to
throw their pursuers off the track, they rode up it as long as the
river continued wide, but as it contracted the water became too deep to
be breasted by the horses, and they crossed to the opposite bank. Here,
to their great sorrow, their goat and her kid gave out, and no urging
could induce them to proceed. The animals had evidently gone as far as
they were capable, and with sorrow they turned them loose and left
them. The goat's milk had been such an indispensable addition to their
store that they felt as if parting with one of their main reliances in
leaving her behind.

Still they pursued their way, avoiding the hills as much as possible
until the sun was high in the heavens; when becoming weary with their
hard ride, and faint for want of food, they halted in a spot where a
cool spring gushed from beneath a huge boulder that looked as if it had
been hurled from a rocky acclivity above to its bed. Tethering their
horses where they could feed, they set a guard and began with all haste
to eat such as their provision bags afforded. Cooking was out of the
question, for the smoke would point out the exact spot where they were,
a thing they were most desirous to hide.

They now calculated they were thirty miles from the place of their last
encampment, and beyond the danger of being overtaken, provided their
enemies had no horses, which they thought quite probable. However, they
deemed it imprudent to rely on such a supposition; and after an hour's