958 INDIAN TRAGEDIES AND ROMANCES.

disappearing behind the western hills the foe withdrew for a short distance to devise some new mode of attack. This respite came most seasonably to our spies, who had kept their ground and bravely maintained the unequal fight from nearly the middle of the day.

"Now, for the first time, was the girl missing; and the spies thought that through terror she had escaped to her former captors, or that she had been killed during the fight; but they were not long left to conjecture. The girl was seen emerging from behind a rock and coming to them with a rifle in her hand. During the heat of the fight she saw a warrior fall, who had advanced some distance before the rest, and, while some of them changed their position, she resolved at once, live or die, to possess herself of his gun and ammunition; and crouching down beneath the underbrush, she crawled to the place and succeeded in her enterprise. Her keen and watchful eye had early noticed the fatal rock, and hers was the mysterious hand by which the two warriors fell; the last being the most intrepid and bloodthirsty of the Shawnee tribe, and the leader of the company which killed her mother and sister, and took her and her brother prisoners.

"Now in the west arose dark clouds, which soon overspread the whole heavens, -and the elements were rent with the peals of thunder. Darkness, deep and gloomy, shrouded the whole heavens; this darkness greatly embarrassed the spies in their contemplated night escape, supposing that they might readily lose their way, and accidentally fall on their enemy; but a short consultation decided the plan. It was agreed that the girl should go foremost, from her intimate knowledge of the localities, and another advantage might be gained in case they should fall in with any of the parties or outposts   from her knowledge of their language she might deceive the sentinels, as the sequel proved; for scarcely had they descended a hundred yards, when a low whist from the girl warned them of their danger.   The spies sunk silently to the ground, where, by pre-