g occasional visits to the
family, and they had become familiar and even affectionate with many of
them, but this seemed a stranger, and after the first hasty glance they
fled in alarm to the house.

Their mother chid them for the report they brought, which she endeavored
to convince them was without foundation. "You know," said she, "you are
always alarming us unnecessarily: the neighbors' children have
frightened you to death. Go back to your play, and learn to be more
courageous."

So the children returned to their sports, hardly persuaded by their
mother's arguments. While they were thus seated upon the trunk of the
tree, their discourse was interrupted by the note, apparently, of a
quail not far off.

"Listen," said the boy, as a second note answered the first; "do you
hear that?"

"Yes," was the reply, and, after a few moments' silence, "do you not
hear a rustling among the branches of the tree yonder?"

"Perhaps it is a squirrel--but look! what is that? Surely I saw
something red among the branches. It looked like a fawn popping up its
head."

At this moment, the children, who had been gazing so intently in the
direction of the fallen tree that all other objects were forgotten, felt
themselves seized from behind and pinioned in an iron grasp. What were
their horror and dismay to find themselves in the arms of savages, whose
terrific countenances and gestures plainly showed them to be enemies!

They made signs to the children to be silent, on pain of death, and
hurried them off, half dead with terror, in a direction leading from
their father's habitation. After travelling some distance in profound
silence, the severity of their captors somewhat relaxed, and as night
approached the party halted, after adopting the usual precautions to
secure themselves against a surprise.

In an agony of uncertainty and terror, torn from their beloved home and
parents, and anticipating all the horrors with which the rumors of the
times had invested a captivity among the Indians--perhaps even a
torturing death--the poor children could no longer restrain their grief,
but gave vent to sobs and lamentations.

Their distress appeared to excite the compassion of one of the party, a
man of mild aspect, who approached and endeavored to soothe them. He
spread them a couch of the long grass which grew near the
encamping-place, offered them a portion of his own stock of dried meat
and parched corn, and gave them to understand by s