with the hard snow-crust, but certainly cause her detection.  The poor girl’s heart sank within her, and, for a time, she reclined submissively in the canoe, and gave way to a flood of tears.  She thought of her gray-haired father, and a piercing agony thrilled through her breast.  And she thought, too, of others—­of Boone, of Glenn, and her pangs were hopelessly poignant.  Thus she lay for several long hours, a prey to grief and despair.  But some pitying angel hovered over her, and kindly lessened her sufferings.  By degrees, her mind became possessed of the power of deliberate and rational reflection; and she was inspired with the belief that the savages only designed to exact a heavy contribution from the whites by her capture, and would then surrender her up without outrage or injury.  Another hope, likewise, sprang up in her breast:  it was, that the Indian she had been instrumental in releasing from captivity might protect her person, and, perhaps restore her to her father.  She also felt convinced that Boone and Glenn would join her father in the pursuit, and she entertained a lively hope that they would overtake her.  But, again, when she looked out on the surface of the snow, and beheld the rapidity of the savages’ pace, this hope was entertained but for a moment.  She then resolved to make an effort herself to escape.  If she was not successful, it would, at all events, retard the progress of her captors, and she might also ascertain, with some degree of certainty, their purposes with regard to her fate.  She rose as softly as possible and sprang upon the snow.  The Indians, as she feared, instantly felt the diminution of weight, and halted so abruptly that every one of them was prostrated on the slippery snow-crust.  Mary endeavoured to take advantage of this occurrence, and, springing quickly to her feet, fled rapidly in the opposite direction.  But before she had run many minutes, she heard the savages in close pursuit and gaining upon her at every step.  It was useless to fly.  She turned her head, and beheld the whole party within a few paces of her.  The foremost was a tall athletic savage, bearing in his hand a tomahawk he had snatched from the snow-canoe, and wearing a demoniac scowl on his lip.  Mary scanned his face and then turned her eyes to heaven.  She felt that her end was near, and she breathed a prayer taught her by her buried mother.  The savage rushed upon her, entwining his left hand in her flowing hair, and waving his tomahawk aloft with the other, was in the act of sinking the steel in the fair forehead before him, when the blow was arrested by a mere stripling, who came up at the head of the rest of the Indians.  The Herculean savage whirled round and scowled passionately at the youth.  The young Indian (the chief just elected in the place of Raven) regarded him a moment with gleaming eyes, and a determined expression of feature, and then with much dignity motioned him away.  The huge savage was strangely submissive in a moment,