The English boy struck the Indian who had
given him the information, on the temple, as he had been
directed. They then collected all the provision they could find,
and took their master's tomahawk and gun, and scuttling all the
canoes but one, commenced their flight to Haverhill, distant
about sixty miles by the river. But after having proceeded a
short distance, fearing that her story would not be believed if
she should escape to tell it, they returned to the silent wigwam,
and taking off the scalps of the dead, put them into a bag as
proofs of what they had done, and then retracing their steps to
the shore in the twilight, recommenced their voyage.
Early this morning this deed was performed, and now, perchance,
these tired women and this boy, their clothes stained with blood,
and their minds racked with alternate resolution and fear, are
making a hasty meal of parched corn and moose-meat, while their
canoe glides under these pine roots whose stumps are still
standing on the bank. They are thinking of the dead whom they
have left behind on that solitary isle far up the stream, and of
the relentless living warriors who are in pursuit.
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