"See, Nelly, see!" exclaimed half a dozen eager voices; "yonder ar'
men; and Phoebe says that they ar' Sioux-Indians!"
Ellen turned her eyes in the direction in which so many arms were
already extended, and, to her consternation, beheld several men,
advancing manifestly and swiftly in a straight line towards the rock.
She counted four, but was unable to make out any thing concerning
their characters, except that they were not any of those who of right
were entitled to admission into the fortress. It was a fearful moment
for Ellen. Looking around, at the juvenile and frightened flock that
pressed upon the skirts of her garments, she endeavoured to recall to
her confused faculties some one of the many tales of female heroism,
with which the history of the western frontier abounded. In one, a
stockade had been successfully defended by a single man, supported by
three or four women, for days, against the assaults of a hundred
enemies. In another, the women alone had been able to protect the
children, and the less valuable effects of their absent husbands; and
a third was not wanting, in which a solitary female had destroyed her
sleeping captors and given liberty not only to herself, but to a brood
of helpless young.
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