JOHN AND MARY CARRIED OFF.
23
and the glare of his eyes, and ashy pallor of his rigid face, as he joined us, were even more eloquent of his terrible news than the few words he with difficulty gasped out from between his clinched teeth,
"My children!"
" Great God ! which V
" John and Mary ! they've carried them off!"
Nothing more was spoken, but, bending forward with a perfect howl of fury, the rangers lashed their horses like madmen. Such an incident was sufficiently calculated to rouse a delirium of wrath in their fiery natures.
In addition to the other outrages, these two children had been. torn from their old parent, to be dragged off to a horrible captivity in the distant hills, unless we could catch the brutal spoilers before they had gained a covert.
No marvel that horses were goaded even when faithfully at their utmost speed ; that swollen veins were knotted along flushed temples, and curses and yells burst at intervals from tightly-drawn lips, as the image of those fair young children, writhing in the black, naked arms of a filthy and ferocious warrior, would rise up before us. For every body loved little Molly Hicks, " wi' the lint-white locks," and Johnny was a second " Benjamin, the child of his old age," to the hardy pioneer.
As he rode in front, which position he somehow maintained, with all the headlong eagerness of the younger members of the party, with his features stiffened and set, his eyes fixed on the distance before him, and his long, white hair streaming from his uncovered head, I thought I had never looked upon a more striking picture of stern, mute agony. It was enough to have strung the nerves of a dastard to reckless daring—one look at that silent old man.
The trail was leading in the direction of the densest portion of the Cross Timber, where, too, among wooded and broken ridges, the head waters of the Trinity took their origin, breaking in nu-