“If thee calls killing the killers avenging,” replied Nathan, “the poor deceased people had vengeance enough.  Of the fourteen murderers, for that was the number, eleven were killed before day-dawn, the pursuers having discovered where they had built their fire, and so taken them by surprise; and of the three that escaped, it was afterwards said by returning captives, that only one made his way home, the other two having perished in the woods, in some way unknown.—­But, truly,” continued Nathan, suddenly diverting his attention from the tragic theme to the motions of his dog, “little Peter is more disturbed than is his wont.  Truly, he has never had a liking to the spot:  I have heard them that said a dog could scent the presence of spirits.”

“To my mind,” said Roland, who had not forgotten Nathan’s eulogium on the excellence of the animal’s nose for scenting Indians, and who was somewhat alarmed at what appeared to him the evident uneasiness of little Peter, “he is more like to wind another party of cursed Shawnees than any harmless, disembodied spirits.”

“Friend,” said Nathan, “it may be that Injuns have trodden upon this field this day, seeing that the wood is full of them; and it is like enough that those very evil creatures at the ford hard by have stolen hither, before taking their post, to glut their eyes with the sight of the ruins, where the blood of nine poor white persons was shed by their brothers in a single night; though, truly, in that case, they must have also thought of the thirteen murderers that bled for the victims; which would prove somewhat a drawback to their satisfaction.  No, friend; Peter has his likes and his dislikes, like a human being; and this is a spot he ever approaches with abhorrence,—­as, truly, I do myself, never coming hither unless when driven, as now, by necessity.  But, friend, if thee is in fear, thee shall be satisfied there is no danger before thee; it shall never be said that I undertook to lead thee poor women out of mischief only to plunge them into peril.  I will go before thee to the ruin, which thee sees there by the hollow, and reconnoitre.”

“It needs not,” said Roland, who now seeing the cabin of which they were in search close at hand, and perceiving that Peter’s uneasiness had subsided, dismissed his own as being groundless.  But notwithstanding, he thought proper, as Nathan advanced, to ride forward himself, and inspect the condition of the building, in which he was about to commit the safety of the being he held most dear, and on whose account, only, he felt the thousand anxieties and terrors he never could have otherwise experienced.

The building was a low cabin of logs, standing, as it seemed, on the verge of an abyss, in which the river could be heard rushing tumultuously, as if among rocks and other obstructions.  It was one of those double cabins so frequently found in the west; that is to say, it consisted of two separate cots, or wings, standing a little distance apart, but united by a common roof; which thus afforded shelter to the open hall, or passage, between them; while the roof, being continued also from the eaves, both before and behind, in pent-house fashion, it allowed space for wide porches, in which, and in the open passage, the summer traveller, resting in such a cabin, will almost always find the most agreeable quarters.