Thus called upon, Roland acquainted Nathan with the events that had succeeded his departure from the ruin,—­the appearance of Ralph Stackpole, and the flight of the party by the river,—­circumstances that moved the wonder and admiration of Nathan,—­and with all the other occurrences up to the moment of the defeat of the Kentuckians, and the division of the plunder among the victorious Indians.  The mention of these spoils, the rifles, rolls of cloth, beads, bells, and other gewgaw trinkets, produced an evident impression on Nathan’s mind; which was greatly increased when Roland related the scene betwixt Telie Doe and her reprobate father, and repeated those expressions which seemed to show that the attack upon the party was by no means accidental, but the result of a previously formed design, of which she was not ignorant.

“Where Abel Doe is, there, thee may be sure, there is knavery!” said Nathan; demanding earnestly if Roland had seen no other white man in the party.

“I saw no other,” he replied:  “but there was a tall man in a blanket, wearing a red turban, who looked at me from a distance; and I thought he was a half-breed, like Doe,—­for so, at first, I supposed the latter to be.”

“Well, friend!  And he seemed to command the party, did he not?” demanded Nathan, with interest.

“The leader,” replied Roland, “was a vile, grim old rascal, that they called Kenauga, or Kenauga, or—­”

“Wenonga!” cried Nathan, with extraordinary vivacity, his whole countenance, in fact, lighting up with the animation of intense interest,—­“an old man tall and raw-boned, a scar on his nose and cheek, a halt in his gait, his left middle-finger short of a joint, and a buzzard’s beak and talons tied to his hair?—­It is Wenonga, the Black-Vulture.  Truly, little Peter! thee is but a dolt and a dog, that thee told me nothing about it!”

The soldier remarked, with some surprise, the change of Nathan’s visage, and with still more, his angry reproaches of the trusty animal, the first he had heard him utter.

“And who then is the old Black-Vulture,” he asked, “that he should drive from your mind even the thought of my poor wretched Edith?”

“Thee is but a boy in the woods, if thee never heard of Wenonga, the Shawnee,” replied Nathan hastily,—­“a man that has left the mark of his axe on many a ruined cabin along the frontier, from the Bloody Run of Bedford to the Kenhawa and the Holston.  He is the chief that boasts he has no heart:  and, truly, he has none, being a man that has drunk the blood of women and children—­Friend! thee kinswoman’s scalp is already hanging at his girdle!”

This horrible announcement, uttered with a fierce earnestness that proved the sincerity of the speaker, froze Roland’s blood in his veins, and he stood speechless and gasping; until Nathan, noting his agitation, and recovering in part from his own ferment of spirits, exclaimed, even more hastily than before—­“Truly, I have told thee what is false—­thee kinswoman is safe,—­a prisoner, but alive and safe.”