The act, for one of her peculiarly timorous spirit, was surprising enough; but a great transformation seemed to have suddenly taken place in her character, and even her appearance, which was less that of a feeble woman engaged in a work of humanity, than of a tigress infuriated by the approach of hunters against the lair of her sleeping young.  She grasped the cord with unexpected strength, and her eyes flashed fire as they wandered around, until they met those of the supposed half-breed, to whom she called with tones of the most vehement indignation,—­“Oh, father, father! what are you doing?  You won’t give him up to the murderers?  You promised, you promised—­”

“Peace, fool!” interrupted the man thus addressed, taking her by the arm, and endeavouring to jerk her from the prisoner; “away with you to your place, and be silent.”

“I will not, father;—­I will not be silent, I will not away!” cried the girl, resisting his efforts, and speaking with a voice that mingled the bitterest reproach with imploring entreaty, “you are a white man, father, and not an Indian; yes, father, you are no Indian; and you promised no harm should be done,—­you did, father, you did promise!”

“Away, gal, I tell you!” thundered the renegade parent; and he again strove to drag her from the prisoner.  But Telie, as if driven frantic by the act, flung her arms round Roland’s body, from which she was drawn only by an effort of strength which her weak powers were unable to resist.  But even then she did not give over her purpose; but starting from her father’s arms, she ran screaming back to Roland, and would have again clasped him in her own; when the renegade, driven to fury by her opposition, arrested her with one hand, and with the other catching up a knife that lay in the grass, he made as if, in his fit of passion, he would have actually plunged it into her breast.  His malevolent visage and brutal threat awoke the terrors of the woman in her heart, and she sank on her knees, crying-with a piercing voice, “Oh, father, don’t kill me! don’t kill your own daughter!”

“Kill you, indeed!” muttered the outlaw, with a laugh of scorn; “even Injuns don’t kill their own children.”  And taking advantage of her terror, he beckoned to the Piankeshaw, who, as well as all the other Indians, seemed greatly astounded and scandalised at the indecorous interference of a female in the affairs of warriors, to remove the prisoner; which he did by immediately beginning to drag him down the hill.  The action was not unobserved by the girl, whose struggles to escape from her father’s arms, to pursue, as it seemed, after the soldier, Roland could long see, while her wild and piteous cries were still longer brought to his ears.