The Morning herald., 1877-11-07
irdlike than they had been for O long time

hei pounulnB AapplnesS, and she wandered
out into the forest that reaches down from
the overhanglng heights to her little valley
home. Scampering after frightened
squirrel, clambe-!ng over huge boulders,
rended ages before from their parent ms.f
by some mighty convulsion of nature, bath.
ing her feet in the eddy of the trembling
steam, or picking handfuls of moss and
flowers, she gave no heed to the direction
in which her steps tended until, suddenly,
with little cry of joy, she realized that she
was close to her husbands mill. Springine
into the trodden path, and fastening on
with the intent of surprising Harry at his
toll, and yet wondering why the saw was
not in motion, she stumbled over hud-
died mass of something like human figure.
Half stopping to examine it, she caught the
hideous stare of face set in death and
covered with blood, and head ruthlessly
stripped of its scalp! Utteringa q low, ago.
nizing moan, she shrunk back q step, and
there stood motionless, palsied in tongue and
limb, paralyzed in everything but her sight
that came through her strained and set eye.
balls, and her Mortified brain, that, with
quickened impulse, realized all this horrid
thing! Oh, if ones brain would stop its
action, if ones eyes would lose their power
of vision, if ones senses would desert him
at such moments Of awful horror how
merciful it would be!
But Amy stood powerless, motionloss,
and yet conscious that an awful tragedy
had been enacted here. She knew this
was the work of savages. The victim lying
before her was one of the hired mill hands
Where was Harry and the other mill hand?
How needless to ask for the other hand,
when there in the path, few PAGES beyond
the first victim, he lay, scalped and dead,
with his glazed eyeballs booking vacantly
up to the heavens. These victims he'd
been overtaken and massacred while fleeing.
Where then, waTIary-her Hary-har
beloved husband? Was he lying dead lil;o
these men in the mill beyond her sight ?
Had his lifeless body been thrown into tho
stream and washed away? Had he, wound
ed to death, crawled among the eabs or
bags to die, with no loving hand to staunch
his life blood?
At this awful thought, power came again
to Amy's limbs, and tottering over the dead
bodies she made few steps but stopped
once more, her eyes riveted On an awful
spectacle within the mill. There upon the
carriage that conveyed the logs to the now
notionless saw, and held them in place !
when being sawed up, half crouched, half
ay, two hideously painted and garbel |
igures that she knew were savages. Their
lands were covered with blood, and at tho
waist of each hung scalp, but their heads
lung forward and powerless as if they wero |
n slumber, or as if some stupor had
'vertaken them.
What could it mean? Why did these
nurderous savagcs linger there? Suddenly
he realized the whole truth, as her eye be-
leld Harry's empty dinner-basket and the
verturned jug that lay between them.
'he knew Harry had, few days previous,
t the request Of his loggers in the woods
nd his mill hands, brought them from the
ettlement gallon of whiskey. Though
larry drank no liquor himself, and WIS
pposad to its use, his men had been used
, taking it, and persisted in having
!. The savages after their murder
us work, had, in their search for
lundcr, found the liquor, and emptied the
ontents of the jug. This accounted for
leir strange stupor. L
And at this moment there C0mo to Amy
,rs from out the woods the sound Of rich,
lanly voice, singing & happy refrain. IT.
as Harry's voice. He was safe! lie was
oproaching! He had been absent in the
ood and had not encountered the sayages.
be forgot the great terror. She coul.
ave shrieked with joy, andyet she did not,
I'd o new horror seized her, as she per
lived one Of the savages move unensi!v, 3,
artially aroused from his stupor, appar-
lily, by the sound of Harry's voice. !.
At this movement of the savage, tho ter
bic situation flashed upon her in an in
ant She did did not think of her own
,ril, standing there only few PAGES from
% Indians; but it was of Harry that she
as thinking. He was approaching, utter
. IL, - 41,o %n,,sl1, | L