Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1857-1865, 1858-03-05
CHAPTER x.

A eoncatenation Of circumstances, as
the reader has seen, had, strangely enough,
grouped together a medley Of character,
representing the various traits of savage
and civilized life. The Indians, exulting
in the captivity of an unoffending woman,
and now reposing in fancied security ;
Wilmer and the Hermit, brave, magnani-
nous and humane, bent upon the relief of
suffering innocence, at the hazard of life
itself; Mike Sloan, a desperado, obeying
an impulse of gratitude, perhaps the
remnant of all that was originally good in
his nature, and Capt. Fritz, sacrificing all
the advantages with which circumstances
had blessed him, to crafty the malignity
of his heart. So long as there was moth
ing to call into active play the Unborn
baseness of his nature, he maintained a
position of respectability never his just
due; but SO soon as occurrences adverse
to his hopes and wishes aroused the demon
within him, we find him, without the rud-
der of integrity, adrift upon the storm
lashed sea of passion, rapidly approaching
the breakers that must engulph him in
crime.
Ida, the innocent instigater of these
complicated movements, had been buoyed
up by hope amid the trials she was under
going. The dawn Of each day found
her sangune Of relief, and the shades of
evening extinguished not the light of hope.
But fatigue, by wasting her physical
strength, had, at length, so far subdued her
elastic spirit that dependency was rapidly
gaining the ascendancy, and hope was
Igiving way to despair. At the moment
when Wilmer was sleeping quietly within
few hundred yards of her, and Fritz, a
little further off, was muttering in the
troubled sleep of guilt, Ida, on her rude
couch, with throbbing head and aching
. limbs, courted in vain, the soothing
! presence of deaths twin sister" Her
father slept, and so did the two savages,
between whom he lay fast bound; and the
, third Indian, whose turn it was to keer
, watch, bent over the feeble light Of the fire
engaged in repairing some portion of hi:
damaged wardrobe. Now and then, he
would discontinue his occupation, cast q
t penetrating look into the surrounding
darkness, and listen attentively, as if he
, expected to see, or hear the approach Of
his absent companions, whose cold and
stiffened forms were even then furnishing
feast for the hungry wolves. As his
small black eyes emitted their fierce light
and rested, for moment, on her pale face
Ida would tremble, and, with difficulty
suppress an impulse to call upon her ia.
ther, as if her cries could sever the thongs
that bound him, or evoke sympathy from
a the relentless nature of the savage.
Amid the painful stiffness of the night
the hooting of the owl, and the distant
response of its mate, was the only sound
Ida had heard, for hours, and it Jared
upon her excited nerves and intensified
the feeling of loneliness and desolation
until she began to contemplate death as ;
a source of relief. Indulging the gioomies
, forebodings, and suffering from bodily in.
r disposition, she had wrought herself W
) to a point of desperation that bordered
t upon madness, and she began wildly tc
a consider whether she would not attemp
e her own, and her fathers liberation with
G her own feeble hand. The knife of thu
waking savage laid temptingly within
4 reach, and her hand closed spasmodically
| as her eye rested upon the deadly weapon
But she was spared further temptation Il
a essay the bloody task. The sharp cracl
of rife fell upon her ear, and at tn,
h same moment the body of the savage drop
ped, lifeless, at her side. Before she coulC
. think, or move, a tall form bounded owe
the fallen tree near which she was reclin
ing, another shot was fired, and the hal
r erect form of another savage, startled iron
A sleep, received the fatal bullet; the thir,
Indian had sprung to his feet, rifle il
hand, and looked wildly around for tn
e enemy who had so suddenly assailed them
but that look was his last before he fell
D. pierced through by the ball discharged
4 from the pistol in Winners hand.
n This bloody deed was the work of
J. moment, and Gen. Holmes was scarcel
i awake when the bonds were removed fror
j. bis benumbed limbs, and the voice Z