"
"Too late! too late!" exclaimed the trapper, "for the creatur's are in
open view; and a bloody band of accursed Siouxes they are, by their
thieving look, and the random fashion in which they ride!"
"Siouxes or devils, they shall find us men!" said the bee-hunter, with
a mien as fierce as if he led a party of superior strength, and of a
courage equal to his own.--"You have a piece, old man, and will pull a
trigger in behalf of a helpless, Christian girl!"
"Down, down into the grass--down with ye both," whispered the trapper,
intimating to them to turn aside to the tall weeds, which grew, in a
denser body than common, near the place where they stood. "You've not
the time to fly, nor the numbers to fight, foolish boy. Down into the
grass, if you prize the young woman, or value the gift of life!"
His remonstrance, seconded, as it was, by a prompt and energetic
action, did not fail to produce the submission to his order, which the
occasion seemed, indeed, imperiously to require. The moon had fallen
behind a sheet of thin, fleecy, clouds, which skirted the horizon,
leaving just enough of its faint and fluctuating light, to render
objects visible, dimly revealing their forms and proportions.
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